


Haunted Dreams

by persephoneregina



Series: The Haunted Saga [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band), K.A.R.D (Band), ONEUS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blood Magic, Curse Breaking, Curses, Drama & Romance, Fae Magic, Flower Fairy Hongjoong, Fluff, Happy Ending, Love and Redemption, Love at First Sight, M/M, Magic, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Prince Youngjo, Red String of Fate, Resurrection, Romance, Romantic Soulmates, Romanticism, Self-Sacrifice, Somnus Youngjo, Star-crossed, Strangers to Lovers, Temporary Character Death, fairy hongjoong, temporary mcd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephoneregina/pseuds/persephoneregina
Summary: There are creatures in the woods.There are creatures, of different kinds, serving different purposes, bearing different gifts or curses to the world of the living.There are creatures, and they live in the evening breeze, in the light of dusk, in the elongated shadows that stretch themselves on the world, until they eventually swallow it whole and wrap it up into the darkness of their almighty hold.Some of them are the Somni, crafters of dreams, who weave pearls of beautiful fantasies with silver threads of imagination as their divine gift to all the creatures of the world.Such is Youngjo, known amongst his highborn kin as the Prince of Dreams, is indeed the most noble and skilled Somnus the world has ever seen.But, as well as the Somni, there are many other creatures in the woods.And when they meet, magic happens.
Relationships: Jeon Jiwoo/Jeon Somin, Kim Hongjoong/Kim Youngjo | Ravn
Series: The Haunted Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662715
Comments: 31
Kudos: 30





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elutherya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elutherya/gifts), [youngjo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngjo/gifts).



> Hello everyone!  
> I have decided to post this first part of my second tale from the Haunted Saga... Hope you're going to like it, I have suffered quite a lot writing it so I hope it has been worthwile.  
> Don't worry about the smut, it'll happen. Just- not yet. I know, I love to make y'all suffer, please don't hate me too much.  
> I hope I have done a decent job, since it's my first time writing something revolving around YoungJoong as a primary pairing and I feel very insecure about this, so please, if you have a second to spare after reading, leave a comment or kudos... I would love to know if I'm going in the right direction with this and honestly you would make my day since, as some might know, I am living in quarantine and, well, let me tell you: it's not fun. At all. You would really raise my spirit by doing that.  
> Also, keep in mind that you can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/persefoneregina)! Hit me up!  
> Love you all, so, so, so much.
> 
> PS. This is a small present for you, Rene and Koa. To make you smile.

# Haunted Dreams

# 

There are creatures in the woods.

There are creatures, of different kinds, serving different purposes, bearing different gifts or curses to the world of the living.

There are creatures, and they live in the evening breeze, in the light of dusk, in the elongated shadows that stretch themselves on the world, until they eventually swallow it whole and wrap it up into the darkness of their almighty hold.

Some of them are the Somni, crafters of dreams, who weave pearls of beautiful fantasies with silver threads of imagination as their divine gift to all the creatures of the world.

Other ones are the Incubi, sculptors of monstrous, anguishing nightmares, who carve their way into the minds of their unfortunate victims by clawing away any shape and form of joy, of quietness, of repose, twistedly relishing in the screams and the squirms and the helpless quaking of the souls who end up subdued by the inescapable grasp of their shackles.

Their mother is a terrible and graceful Goddess, whose name, Jiwoo, is dared being spoken by a very few brave ones, in charge of dispensing justice, by rewarding the pure with heavenly dreams and by cursing the wicked with haunting nightmares. Somni and Incubi, these are her offsprings, bestowers of her verdicts and faithful perpetrators of her resolves, and though they may seem very much alike, as most siblings would, the nature of their purposes, their appearance and their very core couldn’t be any more different.

But darkness and light are not so easy to be told apart one another.

They coexist in the hearts of the living as they coexist in the hearts of the Eternal.

They are the root of Jiwoo’s very existence, being the Goddess a bulwark of perfect balance of both.

But when it comes to her children, balance is the last thing she wishes for them to seek: the divine nature of the Somni is what makes them so precious to the world, just as much as the vicious nature of the Incubi is what makes them as terrible. 

Should a glimpse of light spark into an Incubus’ soul, he would not be an Incubus anymore.

Should a dollop of darkness taint a Somnus’ soul, he would not be a Somnus anymore.

That is how it has been written in the Eternals’ Law. 

And that Eternal Law is what Jiwoo has been created to protect.

Any trespassing means facing her wrath, and no creature wishes to face it.

Because her wrath implies an inescapable death sentence.

Like all mothers, Jiwoo cherishes all of her children very much. 

But amongst them, as it sometimes happens to mothers, she happens to have a favourite child: her most ingenious, fantasious, intelligent and proficient one. 

_ Youngjo _ . 

Youngjo, known amongst his highborn kin as the Prince of Dreams, is indeed the most noble and skilled Somnus the world has ever seen. 

His very looks inspire a certain degree of reverence in whoever might encounter him: his strong, tall frame towers amongst all of his siblings, his wings put any other creature to shame, his regal, breathtaking, iridescent ultramarine blue plumage glows, even in the darkest of nights, with all the shades of an Aurora Borealis, making every creature spectating the magnificent sight of his flight swoon in awe. Not to mention the pure beauty of his chiselled, noble, austere facial features, the compelling depth of his pitch black irises and the unreal glow of his opalescent, exceptionally clear and flawless skin. 

At first sight, everyone would mistake him for a God himself, and on a second one, most would be sure of that.

What is certain is that his divine nature doesn’t just pertain to his remarkable looks, but it includes his incredible proficiency as a dreamweaver as well.

Therefore, his incredible masterpieces are specifically destined to become a reward for the purest individuals, while all of his sibling indiscriminately work all together for the rest of the living who have proven to be worthy of their gifts.

He weaves and weaves perfect crowns of pearls made of imagination, to place on the head of the blessed to reward them with the astounding, spectacular and vivid dreams only he musters conjuring.

In spite of his clearly privileged role, though, Youngjo happens to be such a gracious being and not take any advantage of his position for himself.

He allows his siblings to rest on the most comfortable branches, makes sure to be always kind enough to lay a helping hand, should they make any mistakes in the dreamweaving process, and takes care of waking them up himself when the time comes for them to get to their tasks. It all only comes natural to him, as his condition has never been, to him, an excuse to slack off, but a reason to do twice as much as everyone else in order to constantly prove himself worthy.

After all, he doesn’t need much more than what he has, everything beyond that he considers unnecessary. Of course, he is always very grateful for the gifts he receives by his holy mother, who is more than prodigal when it comes to prizing him for his indispensable operosity, but he would never dream to flaunt all the treasures he receives from her.

It would be unfair, not to mention dangerous, and Youngjo knows, even too well, how immensely fragile their nature is and how is it best to never do anything that might arouse, in his very own brothers, any shape or form of negativity- being their life at stake.

He is content, after all, with the comfortable nest he has built for himself over a tangle of redbud branches and an old robe Jiwoo gifted him, centuries ago, for a well done job. For worn out that it might be, it still does carry an inestimable emotional value. Every time he wakes up and wraps it around his bare body, still wet with dew, glimmering in the light of the setting sun all over his skin, like encrusted diamond drops, he feels the warmth of his mother’s embrace nestling around his limbs and, just for a moment, he banishes his usual stern look from his face, to make room for an endeared smile.

It never lasts more than a couple of seconds, but this small ritual is his secret source of happiness.

Not like Youngjo doesn’t live a happy life, quite the opposite, really.

He just sometimes cannot help but wonder how would it feel to experience first hand all the things he shapes in his dreams. He wonders if, had he really known them, then they would have been even better, even more powerful, even more vibrant.

He wonders if he will ever know what it means to love another creature. To lust for them. To kiss them or touch them. To feel something that isn’t brotherly affection.

He wonders, but then proceeds to escape his own thoughts as fast as he can at the first rushed heartbeat agitating his chest, trying not to dwell on those matters for too long.

Those thoughts are dangerous for someone like him.

Maybe he’s just not supposed to know.

Maybe he can do what he does as good as he does right because he has such an idealized, disembodied, pure projection of those experiences that translates them into exquisite, unattainable epitomes of perfection.

He usually quenches his thirst for knowledge exactly this way: telling himself pretty lies, carefully crafted, almost as much as his dreams, until he believes them.

Until they become so true, in his head, to not leave any room for doubt.

But when it’s his turn to fall asleep, Youngjo dreams as well.

And when it comes to dreams, there’s no aid from rationality to hold back his wishful thinking. Which is why, even though he could never tell anyone, Youngjo begins to slowly get more and more in love with the sleeping time he can afford to have for himself: since, when he sleeps, he can nurture the outrageously empious dream in a dream to find out what more there is in life, for those who are not of his kin.

Until, at sunset, his life begins.

As the lilac light of dusk starts to shine over the world, like a reversed sunrise, his lids flutter, idly procrastinating his awakening. A gentle breeze lightly ruffles the soft, night blue plumage and undulates the iridescent feathers of his wings, which he stretches out and flaps a couple times, before opening up his eyes with a soft, sleepy humming.

Another night is about to begin.

He stands at the brim of his nest, a cold shiver crawling on the skin of his naked body, contemplating the land before him with a determined, yet somehow melancholic, gaze.

With a swift movement, he picks up his old robe and wraps it around his figure. It’s made of sheer, impalpable, glossy, dark blue silk, encrusted with grey and white pearls all around its hems and down its sleeves, that fade along the fabric like stars into the night sky.

There’s a few, small, mother of pearl buttons in the front, which he buttons up by heart, without even looking, with his lean, long fingers.

He takes a deep breath.

Once more, he spreads his wings, allowing the wind to fan against them. He closes his eyes, deeply inhaling the ever so peculiar perfume of the evening breeze, and opens up his arms, fingers wide spread to better feel the inebriating thrill of that vertigo that comes right before the flight.

Then, standing on his tiptoes, he pushes himself off of the tree, free falling in a staggering nosedive. Youngjo counts. 

One.

It always feels so good to let himself fall, the attrite of air against his face is the most priceless caress he has ever felt.

Two.

He has to resist the natural instinct to flap his wings. There’s nothing to fear, and yet, every time, there is that same, old pit at his stomach to remind him of his ephemeral nature.

He could die.

From that height, the slightest miscalculation of flight timing could cost him his life, the impact with the ground would be merciless ever for his strong body.

Why does he do that?

He doesn’t really need to… and yet. 

Yet there’s a voice, in the back of his mind, there’s an instinct, that goes against any natural calling, unyieldingly telling him to push himself further.

To force himself beyond what is reasonable.

To see what happens if he only allows himself one more second of ecstatic uncertainty.

Three.

Youngjo opens his eyes, smirking at the perfection of his instinctual perception of time and length. He could probably free fall for a few meters more, if he wanted to… Yes, he could do that. Maybe next time. 

With a strong stroke of his powerful wings, he abruptly reverses the course and surges to soar as high as he can, at least as high as his wings allow him to push himself. 

A few tears roll down his cheeks, their warmth contrasting the chilling coldness of his skin.

Youngjo stretches his gaze along the magnificent landscape standing under him, suddenly moved at its beauty, trying to take it in in its entirety.

Of course, he cannot do that.

That is part of the tragedy of living a life restrained by the inevitable limits inherent to the possession of a physical, mortal form.

Nonetheless, this doesn’t necessarily have to mean that Youngjo can’t try.

This is his only form of true joy, after all. He can’t give up this, as well.

He basks in the beauty of the world beneath his floating figure for a few seconds more, in mystical adoration. Then, he bids farewell and, gently, flies back down in elegant, calm, wide spiraling movements.

Enough happiness.

Enough of being Youngjo.

It is now time to wear, once more, his metaphysical crown and become what everyone expects and demands him to be.

Youngjo,  _ Somnorum dilectus _ , the Prince of Dreams.

* * *

  
  


Youngjo’s mission is over way before the first rays of sun timidly stretch their golden fingers at the horizon and start to caress the Earth.

He has been fast, even more than usual, but for the sake of accomplishing his duties, in order to live up to the expectations his mother and his siblings have towards him, he ends up being sore and exhausted.

Youngjo ends up gliding next to a stream, in a narrow, misty vale. 

He feels an instantaneous sense of relief as soon as his feet touch the soft grass and his wings shakingly fold on his back, tingling and fatigued. White fireflies float, faintly glimmering, in the blue mist and an expanse of cerulean flowers with glowing petals stretches itself all the way towards the woods, generating an enchanting, luminescent halo sitting on top of the vale.

Youngjo reaches for the edge of the stream and cups his hands together to refresh himself with a sip of fresh water.

The pebbles on the bed shine like mother of pearl and Youngjo’s skin looks even clearer and paler underwater.

He splashes water all over his face and neck, sighing in relief, then stands back up, brushing the dirt off of his robe before taking flight back to his nest, but he’s interrupted by the sound of a playful laughter.

Youngjo instinctively kneels down in the tall grass, scrutinizing his surroundings with careful eyes, until he tracks the source of that wind-chime sound: it’s a Flos.

Youngjo knows about the Flores: they are the offspring of the Goddess of Life, Somin, his mother’s lover, and they take care of any form of wildlife, leading a blissful existence of pure harmony and joy.

He doesn’t know much about their duties and their laws, he has mostly been looking at them from a distance, contemplating their dances and celebrations with which they accompany the transition of the seasons and, with it, the relentless vital movement intrinsic within the natural cycles.

An existence spent in perfect unity with life itself is quite a good living, in Youngjo’s eyes.

He has never seen a Flos so up close.

He looks small, Youngjo thinks, furrowing his brows, confused: his frame is definitely smaller than his own, and this comes with no surprise since he’s used to being the biggest one of his species, but he is even tinier than his brothers.

Youngjo would like to come closer, but he’s afraid to scare him off: he doesn’t know if Flores have any kind of familiarity with Somni and he is aware of how his silhouette may be intimidating, at first sight, for any other creature, so he tries to lay down as low as he can and to capture every frame of the Flos’ joyful gait.

The closer he gets, the more Youngjo’s heart races in his chest, anxiously frightened of being found out looking at him. He clenches his knuckles, praying for him to change path, which, effectively, he does.

The Flos has a pair of rounded, fuzzy, white wings, similar to those of some butterflies he has seen, but in bigger scale, his hair is in an appalling silver colour and he’s wearing a short, thin, pleated garment, ruffled around the small waist and on top the shoulders, where the fabric is pinned by brooches shaped like small flowers. Every now and then, he floats around, dusting a glimmering powder inside the flowers’ corolla, but Youngjo understands that his wings are probably not meant to be used for long flights on extended distances, since he seems to be struggling after just a few dozens of meters and needs to stand on his legs. 

Everything about the Flos makes him appear so fragile to Youngjo: his hands are slight and his body is lean and graceful, his eyes are big and shiny and his facial features look both sharp and delicate, his movements are graceful, elegant, swift, and nonetheless, in spite of all his beauty, Youngjo feels a peculiar sadness by looking at him.

What he is witnessing feels, truthfully, like an epitome of the frailty of life: that creature seems so flimsy, so vulnerable, so ephemeral, that it tears Youngjo apart in two instincts, the one to protect and the one to escape, as if he could break him just with a gaze too much.

In the blink of an eye, Youngjo loses sight of the fairy, nowhere to be seen anymore, but after a second he sees something glittering in front of his eyes and itching on his nose. He vigorously shakes his head and sneezes, brushing away an extremely fine dust with his hands.

“Hehe… I saw you!” The playful voice of the fairy is close and broken by giggles.

“Wooooah, how weird…” 

Youngjo opens his eyes to see the Flos floating in the mist right on top of him, inspecting his figure with widened eyes.

He abruptly rolls on the grass, to face him, but can’t bring himself to stand up, paralyzed by the ethereal beauty of the creature seen up close.

As the Flos kneels down, on top of Youngjo, to gracefully sit on his chest and rummages through his feathers, carefully running his hands to caress his soft plumage, Youngjo feels his ribcage on the verge of bursting out.

His heart races at the appalling clear shade of the creature’s glowy skin and at the perfect proportions of his body, and he indulges on the curve of his small, plush mouth, on the inexplicably satisfying sleek line of his nose, on the delicately almond-shaped slant of his eyes, on the striking colour of his eyes, pale blue with a contrasting darker blue ring around the iris, almost like a dark shore surrounding a frosted lake.

Youngjo feels the Flos pulling, with a big deal of effort, the upper edge of one of his wings to spread it open, and watches, with ill-concealed amusement, the shock on face of the creature.

“Woooooah… These wings are big!” The fairy says, speaking to himself. “And these feathers… I have never seen anything like this…”

Youngjo lets him fidget and poke around for a while, intimately enjoying all the weird reactions of the small creature, that keeps on observing him with an almost scientific interest.

He has never seen anyone react to his appearance in such a genuinely curious way and, since of course he’s not endangered, Youngjo decides to play along and let him snoop for as long as he likes. After all, he doesn’t have many contacts with any other earthly creatures, and so far he could say he finds it quite enjoyable and almost pleasant.

“They actually spread wider than that.” Youngjo says, eventually.

He stands up, after the Flos lifts off from his chest, and spreads his strong, broad wings at the maximum width, with a smug, proud look, while the fairy’s jaw drops.

“What are you, exactly?” The creature whispers, confused, as he flaps his wings a couple times to fly in front of him.

“I am Youngjo, a Somnus. Haven’t you heard of us?”

As soon as Youngjo says the word  _ Somnus _ , the fairy brings both of his hands to his mouth, while his eyes grow bigger and sparkling with emotion, and after a second he drops down in the most reverent, yet slightly clumsy, bow.

“I’m sorry, Your Magnificence, I didn’t realise I was in front of a highborn.” the fairy awkwardly murmurs, but Youngjo lifts up his face, gently grabbing him by the chin with his hand, brushing with the tip of his long, dark claws along the milky white skin of the Flos.

“Please. -He says with a kind smile, staring right into the Flos’ eyes- It’s Youngjo to you. Would you do me the grace to let me know who do I have the pleasure to meet?”

“Oh, sure, my name is Hongjoong, first born of my kind, guardian of the vale.” The fairy offers Youngjo a gentle smile, before standing back up and plucking one of the precious glowing flowers. 

Holding the flower in one hand, Hongjoong then breathes on the petals and sprinkles a cloud of his sparkling dust on the flower, handing it to the Somnus.

“A homage for your kind visit.” He says, while a soft, pink blush blossoms on his cheeks.

Youngjo looks at the flower, startled.

“I cannot accept it, please, this is one of your creatures! Plus, if I take it with me, it will surely die.” He says, moved by the priceless deed.

“What? -Hongjoong laughs, shaking his head and looking at Youngjo with an endeared expression- You really don’t know much about us, do you?”

The Somnus furrows his brows, puzzled, and Hongjoong delicately places the flower in his hand, helping him close his fingers around it with his own, allowing his hands to linger in the gentle hold.

“Our magic derives from Somin, the Goddess of Life. Nothing touched by it can ever die, and neither will that flower. It’s my present to you, as a thank you for all the hard work you and your brothers do for all of us.” Hongjoong still has his hands wrapped around the ones of Youngjo as he speaks and delivers a sweet smile.

For the first time, Youngjo looks at him, directly in the eyes, and allows himself to feel an increasing sense of warmth crawl along his limbs and clench its grip around his heart. 

“Thank you, then. I shall most dearly treasure it.” He says, still lost inside the fairy’s hypnotic eyes. 

Then, to both’s surprise, a timid golden luminescence start to shine on the side of their faces, carving shapes with its warm glow and tracing outlines with the shadows it casts. The dawn has arrived, and either of them know it’s time to part ways and go back to their homes, to their people.

Youngjo is the first one to step back, with a melancholic gaze concealed by a timid smile.

“It’s been nice to meet you, Hongjoong.” He says, as he turns around and spreads his wings, preparing himself to take flight.

“It’s been nice for me too, Youngjo.” Answers the fairy, and Youngjo thinks, just for a second, to see a small, shiny tear in his eyes.

He flaps his wings a couple times and turns his head for a last, longing gaze, before lifting himself up from the soft grass and rising up towards the sky, holding tightly the flower close to his heart. As he flies back to his nest, as he lands, as he curls into it, as he eventually closes his eyes, there’s only one thought in his mind: what he has lived that night is the first instance in which reality has overcome the marvel of any dream he has ever crafted.

Youngjo falls asleep, cradled by the sound of Hongjoong’s laughter still echoing in his ears, and is almost sure that the last thing he sees in his mind is that pair of enticing and enigmatic eyes staring right into his own, fathoming the depths of his soul.

* * *

  
  


Youngjo thinks it will stop.

No, he knows it will stop, he is sure of it.

Youngjo is absolutely sure that, one day, he will stop caressing that flower, which he has carefully hidden safe inside his nest, first thing at dusk and last thing at dawn. 

He is sure that one day he won’t feel that strange pull, at the root of his wings, whenever he gets in proximity of the vale where he first met Hongjoong, a pull almost unbearable and painful to withstand, that drags him lower and lower from his flight path, like claws stabbing deep inside his flesh, and almost ripping his wings to shreds whenever he dares to oppose resistance.

But it’s all in vain.

It’s all in vain, and it never stops, no matter how hard Youngjo forces himself to believe it will.

So he surrenders, every time, and every night he tries to finish his duties as soon as he can, in order to be able to take even just a couple of minutes to fly to the enchanted vale and spend time with Hongjoong, walking through the mist and the flowers.

They never have the chance to properly get involved into any deep conversation, most of the time they barely have the time to greet each other and ask how their night was. Nonetheless, Youngjo doesn’t exactly know how to explain what he feels like, when he gets deprived of those little talks, but he doesn’t like it: all he can tell is that he is left with a void, an emptiness, a lingering gloom that numbs his mood and makes everything else appear insufferably trivial.

He doesn’t like it.

He doesn’t like it at all.

Yet, whenever it happens, he goes back to his nest, holds the flower to his chest, and allows a single tear to roll down his eyes.

For once, he wishes he could be able to craft a dream for himself, a dream beautiful and perfect enough to take his mind to the vale and to make him see Hongjoong again, to make him talk to him, to, dare he say, even touch his hands, but every time he tries, he miserably fails and gives up. 

There’s this weird thing, about dreams.

Whenever Youngjo crafts a dream, he makes sure to follow the emotion he means to project, to add images, scenarios,colours and lights that fit its mood, but when it comes to himself, when it come to try and craft a dream about Hongjoong, he doesn’t know what he feels and he can’t recreate it in one of his works.

Naming the kind of relentless power that incessantly leads him back to Hongjoong, without any form of rationality, without any sufficient reason, except the simple spark of joy he feels whenever they’re nearby, seems to be a task almost impossible for him to accomplish.

He’s used to imagine emotions and feelings being in a certain way, following determined dynamics, with very small variations from time to time, but he has never experienced the real things himself in the first place, so now that those emotions and feelings are happening to him, he doesn’t know what exactly is going on within himself, in the depths of his heart. It’s confusing, frightening, astonishing and thrilling at the same time, but most of all it’s absolutely staggering.

That vertigo, that jump in the void, that grip to his stomach, all those things which he has been experiencing his whole life whenever he would fly, and many more, he now feels them when his feet are soundly planted on the ground of the enchanted vale.

Youngjo doesn’t know if it will pass.

No, to be precise, he doesn’t think it will pass.

And once more, under the pressure of that ravenous pull at the root of his wings, Youngjo deflects from his trail and, obediently, flies down towards the vale, carefully looking for Hongjoong with his barely fissured eyes, lightly scratched by the wind.

Then, he hears a laughter.

Youngjo keeps his eyes sharp, looking for the familiar, glowing silhouette through the thick mist, only guided by the haloing light of the fireflies and by the faint glow of the flowers underneath. 

His heart beats with anticipation at every centimeter he covers to reach for Hongjoong, and when he sees him, throwing petals in the air and giggling as they land back on his face, Youngjo can’t contain the burst of happiness radiating from his heart.

“You have come!” Hongjoong greets him with his usual cheerfulness, immediately letting go of his pastime to focus on his arrival.

Gracefully, he lands a few meters away from where Hongjoong was playing and rushes towards him, a wide smile illuminating his face as he grabs the Flos by the waist and makes him turn in the air.

Youngjo stares, in awe, at the way Hongjoong bends his head back to let out a joyful laugh, at how he spreads his arms to let the night breeze caress his skin, at the way his glistening robe unfurls to float under the air gusts.

Then, without letting go of his firm grip around Hongjoong’s waist, Youngjo gently puts him back down, in front of himself.

Hongjoong is a light as a feather and as delicate as a snowflake, and yet Youngjo feels so incredibly fragile whenever he stands before him, like he could just fall apart to Hongjoong’s will, but he doesn’t do anything to help that. If something, he dwells in that feeling of precariousness, wishing to be given the honor to be at his mercy.

“I’m so glad to see you.” Hongjoong whispers, raising a hand to tough Youngjo’s face.

His fingers are small, and soft, and cold.

The contact with them and the emotion deriving from it make Youngjo shiver.

Hongjoong lightly runs his palm along the Somnus’ face, letting it nestle on the curve of his cheekbone and caressing with his thumb the skin around his eye, his lashes, his lids.

“I’m glad to see you, too.” Youngjo whispers, closing his eyes and lowering his head so that Hongjoong can indulge in the touch a little easier, secretly wishing for his hand to never leave his face.

“Was it a hard night? Are you tired?” The Flos tilts his head, studying Youngjo’s expression, looking for a hint of an answer, but he soon gets lost in the breathtaking beauty of the blissful quietness of the Somnus’ features. Without even noticing, Hongjoong feels himself being drawn closer to Youngjo by an unknown force, and it takes him a great deal of effort to keep his composure and pull back from him.

“I don’t know. I forgot.” Youngjo sweetly says, opening up his eyes again to meet Hongjoong’s enchanting irises, shining with a light of their own in the darkness.

“You forgot? How?” The Flos asks, confused as for how could anyone forget if they’re tired, but then a sudden thought strikes him and makes him blush: he forgets a lot of things when Youngjo is with him.

He forgets all the horrors he has to witness, all the wounds left on nature and animals by humans he has to heal, day after day; he forgets how waking up to a harmed friend feels, how devastated he is at the sight of all that blood, all that lymph poured in vain, how heartbreaking is the grief when he loses the fight against death and sees the light dimming down in the eyes of his protégés…

All those memories, thoughts and emotions, together with the awareness that, in a few hours, he will have to rise and fight for life another day, immediately vanish at the sight of Youngjo approaching his peaceful haven, making room for sweet, tender feelings only.

Youngjo brings so much beauty into his life.

Youngjo gives him a reason to find joy in a world that leaves him sore and grieving.

Youngjo gives him something to look forward to, even when he’s exhausted and drained and all he’d really want to do is sleep.

Hongjoong knows that he could never look for him, not even if he wanted to: his wings could not stand that effort, he would probably have to give up extremely soon or die trying, so all he can do is pray and hope.

Hongjoong hopes.

Hongjoong prays.

And every day, his prayers are answered.

Every day Youngjo comes to him, like a comet made of darkness, making his wish come true.

“Hongjoong?” The Somnus asks, fastening the hold around the fairy’s small waist and pushing him closer to his broad chest.

Hongjoong gasps, taken by surprise. They have never been that close, ever, and the warmth of Youngjo’s body, together with the piercing perfume of musk and amber coming from his skin, makes him quiver under his hands.

“Yes?” He asks, looking at the Somnus’ eyes, so dark and intense, like pools of night sky, relentlessly drawing him into their spell.

“Do you want to fly?” Youngjo softly questions, and now his hands are moving on Hongjoong’s back, fastening him in an embrace so enticing and compelling that Hongjoong feels his defenses crumble at their touch, until all it’s left is him and Youngjo and their eyes sinking in each other’s gaze, falling in an inescapable spiral of increasing attraction that drags them down together in a moment of eternity.

“Yes… Yes I do.” The flos whispers, his breath brushing on Youngjo’s chest like a caress, lips so close to his skin he could almost taste it. 

In a second, Youngjo serrates his arms around Hongjoong and flaps his wings as powerfully as he can to lift the both of them off the ground.

Hongjoong sighs, instinctively hiding his face in the crook of the Somnus’ neck and inspiring his soothing perfume at the top of his lungs, while the friction with the air messes up his hair and dishevels his robe.

The take off is strong and sudden, but before Hongjoong knows it, they are calmly soaring in the skies, following the wind currents and floating between the soft mantle of clouds and the starry sky.

“Are you afraid?” Youngjo asks, holding the Flos’ head safe against his chest with one hand and keeping the other arm wrapped around his waist.

“Should I be?” Hongjoong asks in return, moving his head away from the Somnus’ chest to look at him with the hint of a smile on his lips.

“No… No, you shouldn’t. I’ll keep you safe. -Youngjo says, softly, smiling as well, as fondly as ever- I’ll always keep you safe.”

From his safe spot, tightly held in Youngjo’s embrace, Hongjoong turns his eyes towards the starry sky and his jaw drops, overwhelmed by the beauty of the sight in front of him: thousands and thousands of stars, clustered together in shining streaks of blinding silver light, glimmer in front of him, contrasting with the ominous darkness of the celestial vault at night.

Hongjoong feels his heart sink in his chest, overtaken by the sublime, ineffable beauty of that magnificent spectacle. He wraps his fingers tight around the hems of the precious robe of Youngjo. Tears of awe roll down his cheek, while a moved smile unfolds his lips. And while Hongjoong is long lost in the celestial sight, Youngjo, as for himself, is completely, painfully, helplessly lost in love for the precious fairy he’s holding in his arms.

After an uncountable amount of time, Youngjo finally finds a favourable air current and gently starts to descend towards the vale, taking care of not being too harsh and slowly whirling down, proficiently executing elegant, wide turns, until they reach the ground and his feet safely land on the soft, wet grass.

But, when they arrive, no one of them seems to be willing to part from the embrace.

Youngjo entwines his fingers together and allows his hands to slide down the curve of Hongjoong’s spine, letting them sit around his waistline, and Hongjoong keeps on fidgeting with the hems of the Somnus’ robe.

“Thank you for taking me with you.” Mutters Hongjoong, eventually coming up with something to say, even though clearly insufficient to express what he really feels.

“I can take you somewhere else next time. I can take you wherever you want to be.” Youngjo says, out of raw impulse, blushing at his own boldness.

“Then take me wherever you go.” Hongjoong retaliates, abruptly, grabbing his face with his hands to force Youngjo to look at him instead of shying away.

“Take me wherever you go. Because I only want to be next to you.”

And after hearing Hongjoong saying those words, Youngjo is won over, at last.

He knows that he cannot say yes, he could never take him away from Somin’s reign: that would mean an unforgivable subversion of the Greater Law’s principles, resulting in an unspeakably cruel punishment for the both of them. 

But that moment is way too precious and way too truthful to be spoiled with the harshness of reality.

Right there, right then, reality seems so unlikely to ever present itself asking them for its toll.

And if reality is a cruel, cold instrument meant to ruin the bliss of that moment, Youngjo, better than anyone else, knows that no dream can possibly get even the faintest close to the emotional vibrancy of the feeling he gets whenever he is next to Hongjoong.

His heart pounds in his chest, uncontrollably racing towards Hongjoong’s heart, towards where he finally feels like it belongs, begging to beat with it as one.

Hongjoong is so beautiful.

He is beautiful, and ethereal, and pure hearted, and so, so extremely kind that loving him, for Youngjo, has been the easiest thing to ever happen in his life, and wanting to be close to him has become, with the days, as easy and as necessary as breathing.

Hesitantly, almost like he was scared to harm him even with his eyes, Youngjo raises a hand to caress his face, and Hongjoong surprisingly basks in the tender touch, making the Somnus’ tremble with emotion.

He leans forward, getting closer and closer to him, achingly slow yet irrepressibly further, until he sees Hongjoong close his eyes and push himself forward, to meet him halfway, gently daring him to do the same.

Youngjo should pull back. He shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t, but he wants it so much. He has been wanting it so much, for such a long time that he cannot even recall when was it the first time he has fantasized about kissing Hongjoong. And now he is there, waiting, anticipating, pacing for him to claim his lips as his own. 

Youngjo shouldn’t.

But the fact is this: he  _ wants _ to.

And, for once, duty is the last of his thoughts.

Youngjo lightly sighs, overwhelmed with emotion, and shuts his lids closed, feeling his lashes get soaked with a few defiant tears surging in his eyes, before leaning in and consuming the few inches dividing them, succumbing to the need to love Hongjoong.

At first, their lips barely touch, and yet that’s enough to send shivers all over their bodies, then, ever so lightly, their lips brush one against the other, feeling each other, hesitantly at first, but increasingly more confident, until they softly sink and melt one into each other.

It’s warm. Kissing Hongjoong is warm, his plush lips seem meant to be kissed and nibbled and indulged in every possible way, tasting so sweet, like they’re glazed in nectar, so unspeakably sweet. Youngjo runs his tongue all over them, before sucking on them and allowing Hongjoong to bite his ones in return, holding him faster as he feels the Flos’ arms wrap around his neck and his body pushing against his own.

In the fraction of a second, they fall on the grass, in the middle of the enchanted flowers, without letting go of each other, still kissing through their muffled giggles, rubbing their noses together as they touch their bodies and as their lips part only to clash together right afterwards, more intensely, more passionately, more needingly. 

“How can I let you go, now? -softly asks Hongjoong, his eyes still closed, as he looks for Youngjo’s lips once more, tightly holding his hand. -I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want to be alone.”

“You know I’ll have to leave. But you know I’ll always come back to you. You know I’ll always belong with you.” Youngjo replies, turning on his side to look at Hongjoong, mindlessly tracing his profile with the tip of his finger, letting him place a soft kiss on it when he reaches his lips.

“I promise. I won’t be able to take you wherever I go, but you’ll always be the only one worth returning to. You’ve been carrying my heart with you for so long, do you expect me to live without it? Then, how could I not come back to you?”as Youngjo speaks, Hongjoong turns on his side, as well, and surges to kiss him with the expression of someone who foresees the upcoming farewell.

“Go, then, if you have to. I’ll hold on to your heart, Youngjo, and never let go of that.” Hongjoong says, disguising his sadness with a smile.

“I could die if you did.” Youngjo replies, pulling his fingers away from Hongjoong’s grasp to get back up.

He knows he shouldn’t look back, but he does anyway.

He knows he shouldn’t because it only makes him want to stay more.

He knows he shouldn’t look back because, compared to the happiness that he only feels when he is with Hongjoong, everything else feels like a torture, and he is not ready to go back to his nest, that all of a sudden, for no reason at all, feels so incredibly empty.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Youngjo is still soundly asleep when he feels something weighing on the lower edge of his nest, pushing it down ever so lightly. He hears the sound of twigs breaking and a metallic cackling, announcing the presence of an unattended guest.

He groans a little and opens his eyes into fissures: the sun hasn’t even set yet, it’s way too early to receive visitors, but when he moves his gaze towards the origin of the sounds he has heard, he rushedly stands up and shakes his sleepy head.

“Mother…” Youngjo mutters, confused, looking for his robe.

He picks it up and instinctively looks for the flower that, to his surprise, is nowhere to be seen. A stab of panic paralyzes him. He can’t have lost it. He can’t possibly have slept so deep to throw the flower out of his nest…

“Looking for something?” Jiwoo’s severe voice claims all of Youngjo’s attention.

In front of him, in profile, standing out against the burning red sky, stands his Divine Mother, her long, dark hair waving in the wind, in her splendid, regal, black armored gown, a heavy iron belt around the waist, from which an incredibly long and dangerously sharp claymore dangles with a sinister twang at her every step.

Youngjo feels his heart sink when he notices that, in her hands, wrapped in a pair of iron gauntlets, his mother is holding the flower that Hongjoong gave him, tossing and twirling it through her fingers and raising it in front of her eyes to take a better look at it.

“Mother, I wasn’t expecting you.” Youngjo whispers, lowering his head and shrinking his figure as much as he can.

“Why, would you have had something to hide from me, if you did?” The Goddess’ words are piercing like nails at the nape of his neck, unsettling and stinging.

Jiwoo walks towards him, waving the shining flower in front of his eyes, with an inquisitive expression on her face.

“What a pretty thing this is. Where did you get it?” She asks, peremptorily, with a raised eyebrow, looking for Youngjo’s eyes with her own.

“It’s nothing, really, I… I got it… I got it as a present.” The Somnus mutters.

Lying would be of no use: his mother would know immediately and punish him so hard to make him bitterly regret even considering the option.

“Nothing, uh? So you wouldn’t mind if I, let’s say… - In the blink of an eye, Jiwoo throws out her arm into the air, dangerously holding the flower with two fingers at the wind’s mercy- accidentally let it slip?”

Youngjo doesn’t even think for a second, terrified and panicking as he is at the mere thought of losing that single, small yet significative, thing reminding him of Hongjoong and of how magic life is whenever they’re together. Something, inside of him, makes him pounce towards Jiwoo, pulling him with an instinctual aggressiveness he has never felt before, almost as if his heart’s strings were tied to its stem and couldn’t help but follow its fate, whichever it would be.

His mother laughs, easily dodging his charge, while Youngjo trips on his feet and miserably tumbles on the twigs of his nest. Jiwoo unseathes her claymore and, with its lethally pointed edge, pushes up Youngjo’s face. His eyes are red and wet and his jaw is clenched, to the point that she can clearly hear his teeth gritting.

“You know how I despise lies, my adored.” She says in a mellifluous tone, caressing his cheek with the flat of the sword, up and down, threateningly slow. Youngjo shivers. He shouldn’t have lied. He shouldn’t have tried to evade her questions.

“I’m sorry, mother.” The Somnus says, with a broken voice, trying to keep it together, partly afraid, partly furious. He doesn’t want to look weak. He is everything but weak. 

He is the Prince of Dreams, the pride of his people, he is not weak in any way, and yet that’s how he must appear in the eyes of his mother right now. Weak and miserable, crawling at the sight of his precious present being taken away from him.

He’s furious at his mother, for not allowing him to have one thing just for himself, and he’s furious at himself too, for giving away so easily how much that matters for him, for being so unreasonable, for overreacting without giving a thought about what he was doing.

He feels the sword being planted one inch away from his face, and then the shadow casted by his mother lowers down on him, while the cold gauntlet touches his chin’s skin, making him tremble in terror.

“Then why did you lie, my sweet child?” Jiwoo hisses in his ear, and her tone is anything but nice. It’s inhuman, it’s frightful, it’s ghastly, to the point that Youngjo feels a chill run down his spine and freeze him where he stands, unable to speak a word, eyes trembling in the nothingness.

“Stand up, now. -She orders, and Youngjo complies with her words, shaking.- Now, you will look your mother in the eyes and tell the truth.”

Youngjo, eventually, raises his gaze and meets her eyes. They’re thundering with rage and as cold as ice, ready to freeze him at the slightest vacillation.

“It’s a present from a Flos I have become friends with, and I care for it very much.” Youngjo admits, feeling his heart clenching under the grasp of fear.

He has no idea what does his mother intend to do with this kind of information, and it scares him immensely, since he knows way too well what she is capable of, and he couldn’t bear to live with the thought of having harmed Hongjoong in any way with his words. Youngjo feels like a helpless coward for not being capable of keeping their secret with his mother. He regrets even having kept the flower in plain sight for her to see, if only he had been more cautious, then Jiwoo would have probably never found out any of that and now he wouldn’t be under questioning.

“Here. Take it.”

To Youngjo’s surprise, his mother hands him the flower and gently places it in the middle of his cupped hands, feverishly eager to hold it back.

“Good boy. -She says, patting his head and ruffling his raven black hair.- How long have you been in love with him?”

The striking of the sudden question leaves Youngjo shocked, almost electrocuted, with his eyes wide opened and pupils trembling as he looks at the flower laying in his palms.

“You need to stop seeing him.” Jiwoo continues to speak, giving Youngjo a severe look that definitely needs no room for arguing back.

“You are part of a royal bloodline, of a higher lineage, that by the Greater Law is not allowed to falter.”

“But, mother, I thought we could… I thought that we were allowed to love.” Youngjo tries to retaliate, but his words get weaker and shakier as he speaks.

“You can. But just because you can, it doesn’t mean you must. You are not like everyone else, Youngjo. You are my most precious child, my most beloved, my most perfect one. You cannot slip. We need to set a model for others to follow, dearest, and even though it breaks my heart to do this, I strongly encourage you to put an end to this, before love deters you from duty and impairs your mind.” Jiwoo almost sounds gentle, her voice is calm and collected, as her words rip Youngjo’s heart to shreds.

He knows his mother is right, he was never meant to follow the same path as his siblings, he has always been so different from them that, for as much as he would like to blend in with them, he always seems to be brought back to the fact that, in spite sharing with them the same biographical plan of time and space, deep down his truest self is doomed to lead an isolated existence on a somehow parallel existential plan, appearing similar to everyone else, but truthfully being incapable to reach for them, intrinsically condemned by his formidable uniqueness to eternal loneliness.

Youngjo is used to consider himself as someone who is not allowed to have the slightest privilege and to be under the pressure of double the duties, but nonetheless, this time it’s different.

This time it feels wrong.

This time, obedience has an exceptionally bitter taste that lingers inside Youngjo’s mouth, like a mouthful of hemlock.

The astounding pain burning in his chest is probably the closest thing to dying he has ever felt in his entire existence, a soreness so powerful, so striking, so deep and so intense that leaves him breathless, gasping for air, incapable to even shed a tear or say anything.

Youngjo would like to protest, but he chokes on the words surging in his throat and convulsively pants as his lungs collapse under an invisible weight, seemingly having forgotten how to breathe all of a sudden.

There is something unknown burning deep inside of him, something he has never felt. 

All he knows is that it is powerful, it is untamable, it is wild, it is beastly.

And it’s taking over.

Youngjo’s heart beats faster and faster, unstoppable, yet trembling with fear at the unfamiliar sensations that are taking hold of him.

Of course he has been angry before, but the one he is experiencing now is a different form of anger… It is numbing his senses with its lethal effect, slowly diffusing itself all over his body, crawling down from the nape of his neck to his spine, from his spine to his limbs, until all he can feel is the absolute annihilation of every other sensation than that.

It is not anger.

It is wrath.

A wild wrath, visceral, furious, completely possesses his body, and Youngjo tries to oppose resistance to it, but eventually, when the memories of Hongjoong’s face, of his sparkling eyes, of his breathy laughter, of his warm hands crowd Youngjo’s mind, he gives in and surrenders.

His closes his eyes and his mind goes black, tainted by a dark fog of pure rage settling all over it and wrapping it in its grasp.

Youngjo is about to bend his will to his mother’s orders once more when a voice screams into his mind, intimating him to stop.

_ She cannot have this _ , the voice says,  _ you can’t let her have everything _ .

_ She has had everything she wanted from you. _

_ All your life, you have done nothing but prove her your loyalty, your obedience, your devotion, and this is what you get as a thank you? _

_ You have never asked for anything.  _

_ You have been humble and tame for all these interminable years, never raised your head once, and now that you ask one thing for yourself, she want to take away that, too? _

_ No. _

_ No. _

_ No. _

_ You cannot let that happen. _

_ Let me take over. _

_ I will help you.  _

_ I’m your friend. _


	2. 2 - Absolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Youngjo tries to scream, but no sound comes out of his mouth. When he hits the ground, warm, scathing tears stream down his cheeks and fog his sight, but his eyes remain still on the white flower, clinging on it as if his life depended by it.  
> Before turning completely blind, Youngjo clearly sees a dazzling white petal fall from the flower’s crown and gently float in the air, in a slow, elegant, spiraling movement, softly landing on his lips.  
> He kisses it.  
> It tastes sweet.  
> It tastes like blood.
> 
> \---
> 
> _Oh, the things you’d do for love._  
>  _Even more so, the things you’ve done._  
>  _Look at you now, Youngjo, Prince of one of most noble lineage of magical creatures, now decaying into a foul creature, a parasite, an Incubus._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
> After a very long, long, long, long, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time here I am back with the second and final chapter of this AU, which is extremely dear to my heart and to which I have given my blood, sweat, tears and a countless amount of sleepless nights.  
> I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did and, if you may be so graceful, spare some love for your local cross shipping loving fANGSTfiction author.  
> On a more serious note, I have tried to work on this story on many layers: the conscious and the unconscious, the softness and the angst, the symbols and the dialogues, the mythology and the storyline, so comments and kudos would be largely appreciated.
> 
> I love you a lot and remember that you can actually find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/persefoneregina)!

# Absolution

Youngjo knows he should ignore the thoughts that are clouding his mind and appeal to all of his self control to handle the situation.

He’s sure of that, actually.

Instincts are never good advisors, and probably nothing good has ever come from listening to a voice inside someone’s head. 

He wouldn’t even be tempted to, if it wasn’t for the fact that _that voice is right_. 

He’s been alone all his life. 

He has never had anyone standing by his side, before, not in a proper way: not a friend, not a brother, not a sibling, not a lover. 

All he has ever done has been pleasing others with his unparalleled magic and complying with the orders given to him, without ever putting himself first or thinking of any possible reward for his services, let alone asking for some. And he has done it all out of love for his mother and his bloodline. Nonetheless, love is only love when it knows boundaries, and now he has reached the point where the constant pressure of duty has become unbearable. Now that he has tasted freedom, now that he has had just a bite of how glorious life can be, of how happy he could be, of how it feels to truly love and to be loved in return, Youngjo is aware of how having spent all his life caged and doomed to sacrifice every other possibility to the altar of undisputed duty, with no room for his wishes or ambitions or expectations.

He never belonged to himself.

He has never been his own person, entitled to his own life.

What suddenly strikes him with the same violence and clarity of a lightning bolt is how he was always only meant to serve. There was nothing else in store for him in the bigger picture. All the honours, all the hard work, all the countless years of obedience would have never led to nothing more than a few casual praises and pats on the back.

His life was never supposed to mean anything.

And his mother _knew_.

She knew and she never said anything to him. It was quite the contrary, actually: she knew and, in spite of that and of the alleged love she used to profess to him, she has been gaslighting him into thinking that he had been reserved the highest and most rewarding life possible.

 _She betrayed him_.

 _She probably never even loved him_.

All his life he has been clinging onto a fake projection of himself and of his mother that never really existed if not in his mind, and now that he is beginning to wrap his head around the concept, Youngjo feels furious.

His breath gets heavier, so much that he needs to support himself by holding tightly his thighs as he hears himself panting loudly, and his knees fall week, while his eyes get stinging and burning with tears of anger. He can’t even bring himself to look at Jiwoo in that moment. It’s not because he doesn’t want to look weak or broken: _he is anything but that_. It’s because he doesn’t want her to see his expression of pleasure and raw excitement as he internally surrenders to the voices screaming in his head to allow them to take over.

In the end… _Why not_?

If he cannot have Hongjoong, then what’s the point in living like that?

Even more so, what is the point in living like that anyway?

Why would he accept and swallow all those bitter lies, all that poison his mother fed him, all the loneliness he got so familiar with, to the point it had become his only companion in a cruel psychological paradox?

Youngjo doesn’t even give it a second thought. Why would he have to? For the first time in his whole existence, he feels like he doesn’t need a guidance… On the contrary, he is completely in charge, and the more he gets acquainted with the thought, the more he feels a fire burning up into his guts and flaring along his limbs, consuming every beat of his heart and sucking in every breath he takes, until he could almost combust with the power such an interior awakening has infused him. 

“Youngjo? -his mother’s voice eventually breaks the silence with the same effect of a polearm crashing through a wall of ice- Did you hear me? I want you to do it. You have to leave him. Tonight, Youngjo.” Her words run over him like an avalanche, but Youngjo doesn’t raise his head, looking down as he grits his teeth and his nails dig into the flesh of his thighs.

“Well, I guess that’s all there is to be said about the matter.” Jiwoo wraps up, before turning her back to Youngjo and spreading her pitch black, opaque wings, but before she can make the slightest movement, Youngjo serrates his hand around her wrist, strangling it in his grip, so tight that the metallic chainmail of her gloves cuts his palms, making her turn around with an astonished expression on her face.

Youngjo pulls his mother close to his face with a force unknown even to him and looks straight into her eyes.

If looks could kill and if Gods could perish, Jiwoo would have been dead on the spot, incinerated by the uncontrolled fury raging within Youngjo.

“I will not do anything of what you asked me.” He hisses, through his teeth, straight up challenging her, for the first time in his whole life.

Youngjo is nervous, and there’s a primal fear in his heart, but at the same time the adrenaline pumping through his body has him high on the feeling of raw might. He could crush her, if he wanted to. He could harm her. He could torture her. But he doesn’t. Not yet, anyway.

“I am not asking.” Jiwoo says, trying to let herself loose of Youngjo’s firm grip around her arm. 

She’s… Weak.

He could easily overpower her. He is strong enough for that. 

Youngjo tightens the grip of his hand around the metallic glove until she squirms. He can feel the scales and the chainmail stabbing in his living flesh, but he feels no pain.

“And I am not bending or bargaining.” He answers, throwing Jiwoo away from him, on the floor, where she lands with a loud clanging.

Youngjo looks at her, examining the body structure of his mother, so thin under all that heavy armour, so fragile. 

For the first time, Goddess Jiwoo appears, to him, to be so pathetically fallible and mortal. She could never stand a chance against his physical strength. 

His mother is right there, at his feet, curled up on herself, panting to catch her breath, blood streaming from the chains of her gauntlet.

She bleeds like him.

She suffers like him.

For a moment, Youngjo indulges in the dangerous thought of pushing her down the edge of his nest, into the nothingness, taking advantage of that irrepetible glimpse of weakness… But his thoughts take him too long.

“Oh, Youngjo, my sweet child… -she says in a whisper, slowly turning her head towards him, a sinister smile stretching her lips and her eyes set aglow with a golden light- You don’t know what you’ve done to yourself.”

With a powerful beating of wings, Jiwoo rises mid air in a bolt, as the clouds open up to shine a scorchingly bright beam on Youngjo, too painful for him to watch, and she usheathes her sword, as mighty and formidable as ever. He had never seen his mother’s true face as the Harbinger of Justice, and now that he is there, in front of all of her deadly powerfulness, Youngjo can’t even bear to stand on his feet. 

“Kneel!” She orders, with a voice that echoes throughout the woods and the meadows, the deserts and the coasts, the skies and the lands, making the earth tremble and the air crack with static, as a storm of thunders erupts from the dark clouds beneath her and the golden beam pushes Youngjo down, on his knees, almost breaking his bones with its overwhelming force.

Without understanding how or why, Youngjo breaks down in despair and suddenly find himself crying all of his tears, filled with an unknown sorrow. 

“You have placed a curse upon yourself and betrayed in maximum degree your People! You are no longer worthy to call yourself a Somnus. With your impure thoughts and your malicious conduct, you have tainted your heart and put our bloodline to shame. Your treason and your empiety shall not be tolerated. Now brace yourself and prepare to know the Heavens’ Justice!”

There is a moment of complete silence.

Youngjo looks up, hearing his heartbeat pounding right into his ears and convulsively crying, so much that his chest is wrecked under the pain of his lungs contracting themselves. Through his fissured eyes, he sees the figure of his mother getting closer and closer, like a comet crossing the sky and setting the air on fire with her blazing tail. Then, the world turns black and an annihilating pain stabs him right in the middle of his spine and all the way down to his heart, slashing his torso from side to side. Youngjo collapses, face pressed down on the cold twigs of his nest, breathless, as he feels his forces disappear and his body failing him.

All of a sudden, a single, golden tear falls right in front of his eyes.

“Forgive me, my child… You left me no choice.” Jiwoo murmurs, under his breath, with a voice so thin that Youngjo can’t even tell if those words really came out of her mind or were all a figment of his imagination.

Then, he feels her steps moving away from him and hears a single flapping of wings.

His mother has forsaken him.

Everything is cold and the world is suddenly enveloped by a thick mantle of shadows.

 _Everything is dark_.

 _Everything is cold_.

* * *

After a countless amount of time that Youngjo doesn’t dare to, nor is capable of quantifying, he rolls around on his back and opens up his eyes as much as he can, but even the faint light of the moon is intolerable for him.

It’s night. Already? Still?

Youngjo can’t tell.

His body feels numb and heavy.

It takes him an inhuman amount of effort to miserably drag his arm to lay on his abdomen, while his palm hesitantly touches the edges of the wound. The more he feels his skin with his hand, the more he realises that he must be covered up in blood. If that thought wasn’t terrifying enough for him, right after that an even more anguishing one sneaks inside his mind: _how did he survive that_?

He should be dead. He is not immortal. He is not a God. So why is he not dead yet?

Youngjo stares at the stars in pitch black sky, a tear rolling down his lashes while he lets out a gurgling, bitter snicker. He almost chokes on a lump of blood and phlegm, which he eventually manages to spit out, and for as much as he would like to clean up himself, since he has always had a repulsion for any kind of body fluids, he cannot even move his own body appropriately or with any coordination whatsoever.

At the same time, though, a glimpse of awareness in the back of his mind imperatively tells him to get himself out of there. He cannot stay. That place is not safe for him anymore, not to mention he probably doesn’t belong there at this point.

With extreme struggle, he crawls on all fours, coughing blood, his wings flopping heavily on his back, dead weight, while he clings to the only one thought that he knows will keep him sane, at least for a while: Hongjoong. 

His eyes get glassy with tears as he glimpses the glowing shape of the flower, stuck in the twigs at the edge of his nest. It has been trampled and its petals are wrinkled, but Youngjo pulls it close to his heart as if it was Hongjoong he was hugging for one last time. He closes his lids and, in one last, feeble, desperate vital impetus, lets his body fall down.

This time there is no defying his limits.

This time there is no rush of adrenaline.

This time, Youngjo doesn’t count the seconds.

He wraps his fingers around the fragile stem of the magical flower as tightly as he can and prepares himself to face his fate, clearing his mind of any other thought that is not Hongjoong’s face glowing with joy, of every sensations that is not the memory of his soft lips, of every sound that is not his laughter. 

If Youngjo has to eventually greet Death, he wishes to do so with a light heart and his mind at peace, in spite of all the circumstances that have led to it.

A faint, serene smile rises on his pale lips as he hits the ground.

He has never felt weighty, not one day in his whole life. Gravity feels strange and heavy on him, now that he can’t rely on his powerful wings to defy it as he used to.

The impact with the ground is merciless. 

Youngjo meets the earth with a dull thud and a muffled wail.

“So, it really _is_ over…” he whispers as, with one last, aching movement, he turns his head to let his gaze longingly lose itself along the horizon.

It’s the dead of night and an intense, purple light shines on his body as he cries in pain, trying to stretch his arm in direction of the enchanted vale where, he is sure, his beloved one awaits for him with anticipation.

At long last, Youngjo melts down in bitter tears of overwhelming regret.

He’s aware that, because of his actions and of their consequences, tonight Hongjoong’s heart will break as soon as he will realise he will not come, and what is tearing Youngjo apart is that he has no way to let him know the reason why.

He cries all of his tears, his heart wrecked by the sudden realization that he didn’t get the chance to say goodbye.

If only he could, Youngjo would crawl, grovel, slither, to get even one inch closer to Hongjoong, but he’s in such an excruciating pain that the very thought of moving a muscle is unbearable. In a last, desperate attempt to pull himself up, Youngjo digs with his nails and fingers in the cold ground, refusing for his love to be defeated even by death itself, despite his body failing the ardour of his heart. He tries, and tries, and tries, until even the very last forces abandon him and he falls on his back, vanquished and despaired.

When his eyes shut down, the glowing flower, sitting on his chest, dissolves itself in a thousand specks of light.

In the black night’s cloak, a silver butterfly flutters its wings frantically.

One heavy breath arises to the sky, with a warm cloud of vapour.

Then, the world turns silent.

  
  
  
  


* * *

It’s cold.

It’s cold, all around him, and his head feels heavy and dizzy, so much that it’s even painful to hold it up without it dropping down against his shoulder. His mouth is dry and mossy and there’s a bitter, ferrous aftertaste that lingers in the back of his palate, festering his taste buds whenever he swallows saliva. 

_Well hello, you.You’re awake, at long last._

Youngjo cannot tell if he’s dreaming or if he’s awake, but he hears a deep, guttural voice speak inside his head with a mellifluous tone.

He tries to open up his eyes, but it feels like his lids are glued. 

_Don’t be scared, Somnus_ , the voice says, _it’ll all be over soon_. 

_At this point, it’s only a matter of days._

A matter of days? Until what? And then, what is going to be of him? Where does this voice come from? How does it speak to him? How does it know?

He’s scared.

All of a sudden his heart is racing ad his ears are thundering at every beat, almost as if he was underwater and his eardrums were about to explode under the pressure.

But Youngjo is not underwater. 

That he can tell.

Everything is confused.

With remarkable effort, Youngjo squints his eyes and gasps for air, as he tries to enumerate the things he remembers before passing out: the fight with his mother, her sword piercing through his chest, the blinding light, the annihilating pain, the excruciating fall, the sudden darkness. 

So what happened afterwards?

For as much as he tries to remember, his mind resists him and shuts down every time, forcing Youngjo to accept the temporal gap he can’t seem to be able to fill in.

He’s aware of being in a body. The pain he feels whenever he tries to move his legs or clench his hands is uncanny, not to mention the way he has a hard time breathing as his chest seems to be somehow constrained, but nonetheless the body he’s currently in doesn’t feel like _his own_ : it just doesn’t or cannot follow his brain’s orders for some reason, and even though his mind is clouded and dazed, Youngjo is still lucid enough to understand that there is something incredibly disturbing about it.

_You know, all this thinking is no good for you._

“Oh, really? And what would you know?” Youngjo mutters in response to the voice in his head.

_Oh, you’d be surprised about how much do I actually know._

_I live inside you._

_I am you._

_Ironically, you could very well say that you have created me._

“Shut up, I didn’t do shit.” He spits out through his teeth, repulsed by the audacity of those words echoing in his brain like a sinister joke of his psyche that is just taking a tad too long to fade away.

_But you did, Youngjo. In the very first moment you felt something, inside of you, rioting against the words of your mother, you were conceiving me. I am nothing but a birth of your mind, a little, powerful splinter of your psyche that has accidentally split from it in the very first moment you chose to stand up for yourself against Jiwoo’s will. I was born from both darkness and light. From your boiling blood and throbbing adrenaline. From your tears and your phobias. From your love and your hate._

_I am alive in you just like I am alive in everyone else, you just didn’t know about my presence yet._

_I go by many names, all of them correct._

_Your mother would call me Sin._

_You, however, can call me Ego._

_No, sh, sh, no need to get all worked up… Ah, Youngjo, please, I’m trying to make it easy for you here._

_You shouldn’t panic so hard._

_I can feel it, you know?_

_Remember?_

_I’m inside you._

_I’m made of you._

_You really should try to…_

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! I DON’T WANT YOU! I NEVER ASKED FOR YOU!” The Somnus screams, so hard it hurts his throat and the veins on his neck suddenly swell from under his pale skin, throbbing as his heart rate increases, while Youngjo keep on shouting and roaring as he curls up on himself, his fists bumping on the sides of his head, softly at first, in a rhythmic, slow pace, like the contact with them is the only thing that can keep him sane and fully aware of his physical presence. But the more the voice speaks and the more the Somnus loses himself again in the one that seems, to the glint of rational self still existing within his mind, a terrifying lucid nightmare. Scared, shaking, frantic, all of a sudden the soft bumps become stronger, and before he knows he loses control over the movements of his arms, as he starts to hit himself with the rawest violence he can muster and, at the same time, melts down in pitiful laments, just like a wounded animal, not believing any word of what he hears, growling in pain and desperately screaming as he tries to overcome the loud laughter thundering against the inner walls of his skull, but in vain.

“Please leave… Please… I’m begging you…” Youngjo whines in a desperate wail, his hands digging in the skin of his face, until he feels a painful stab to his heart and has to force them away.

_Oh dear, believe me, I’d love to. You’re not that pleasant of a host, you know? But I’m afraid I can’t._

_There is, you see, this little annotation you might not be yet aware of: we’re together for life._

_So why don’t we make an effort and try to get along?_

_Jiwoo’s curses are powerful ones, you know, and before you know it, you’ll turn into an Incubus. A majestic one, may I add. And when that will happen… Well, I’ll take complete control._

_These few days we will be coexisting together are, for me, pretty much of a trial ride in your young, strong, beautiful body. Of course, it might not feel like that right now, but you must have a little faith: let me do my thing and, before you know it, you’re going to be born anew and stronger than ever._

_Intrigued much?_

_Not like it matters._

_This is just a quick, effective summary of what is going to happen._

_No, no, no, hush now, don’t agitate yourself more: it won’t help._

_You’re not going to stop it, anyway._

_And hey! That thought was rude. Remember, I live in your mind, I know what’s going on in this pretty head of yours._

_No getting away from me._

_Now, sleep._

_We’ll talk again when you’ll feel… more cooperative._

Hesitantly and still trembling through the sighs, Youngjo slowly slides down and curls up on himself on the cold, dusty ground, his huge wings, wrapped around his once impressive figure like a soft, ideal shield from the outer world, warm him up and, just for a moment, give him the sweet illusion of being safe.

When he falls asleep, Youngjo dreams of a glistening white flower, blossomed in the middle of a field of black thorns. 

Every single step he takes to reach the flower is excruciating: the long, sharp thorns pierce through his feet, leaving large, uneven wounds, but oddly enough he doesn’t shed a single drop of blood. 

The more he walks, the steeper the path becomes, and soon enough Youngjo notices how the field has turned into a mountain of thorns. A part of him tells him to give up on reaching for the flower, but there is another part that keeps on pushing him to go further.

In the dream, the climb gets so impervious that Youngjo needs to use his hands as well. The thorns pierce right through them as well, his flesh slicing open at their touch just like butter. Once again, the wounds don’t bleed, but when Youngjo looks at his legs, his milky white skin now looks as black as pitch. 

As soon as he sees that, Youngjo loses his grip and inexorably falls, and falls, and falls. He tries to scream, but no sound comes out of his mouth. When he hits the ground, warm, scathing tears stream down his cheeks and fog his sight, but his eyes remain still on the white flower, clinging on it as if his life depended by it.

Before turning completely blind, Youngjo clearly sees a dazzling white petal fall from the flower’s crown and gently float in the air, in a slow, elegant, spiraling movement, softly landing on his lips.

He kisses it.

It tastes sweet.

It tastes like blood.

  
  
  


* * *

“Hello, love.”

The words, spoken ever so softly, linger in the Somnus’ mind for quite some seconds, floating in the darkness like a glimmering echo, hanging in between dream and reality, and it takes him more than just a while to realize that they actually come from a place outside his head, a place he once called world, a place he cannot reach anymore.

Youngjo groans and slowly stretches out his hand, feeling the air around him, groping, until his fingertips meet the soft features of a soothingly familiar face.

He gasps, bitterly surprised, when he understands that person he’s touching is the last one he expected to find and definitely the one, out of every other living being, he truly wishes wouldn’t have to see him in those conditions.

“Hongjoong…” Youngjo whispers, shedding a bitter tear as he turns his head away from him, ashamed, instinctively trying to hide his face from Hongjoong’s side “Why are you here?”

“What kind of question is that? To take care of you, silly!” Hongjoong’s voice is as cheerful and sweet as ever, but there’s some sort of melancholy, of sadness burdening his words. 

Youngjo doesn’t need to see him to know that he is probably frowning.

To know that there’s not true joy in his heart.

To know that he’s the cause of that.

The small, cold hands of the Flos caress his cheeks, brushing away the tears and lovingly fondling around his cheekbones and along his jaw. 

The gentle touch makes Youngjo want to cry.

Why, out of every creature in the woods, did it have to be Hongjoong the one to find him?

Why did he have to see him in those pathetic, miserable conditions?

Why is he still there, with him?

Why doesn’t any of that seem to bother him in the slightest way?

Why didn’t he just leave him to his fate and give up on his maimed, weak, disfigured body? 

There’s nothing to love about him anymore. 

Anyway, not for long.

“Don’t do this -Youngjo says, suddenly wrapping his hand unnecessarily tight around Hongjoong’s small wrist, so much that he feels him wince under his grasp. He instantly lets go, realising too late he hurt him and finding himself submerged by a wave of guilt and regret, shaken at his own lack of self control- Hongjoong, please… You really should leave.”

“I beg to differ, love. I really should not.” He answers, patiently, like he would have done with a capricious child pulling a temper tantrum at him. 

“Hongjoong, I mean it. What I’m going to go through is not something you can help with or that you should be witnessing. I would rather if you would leave me alone.” Youngjo begs, holding Hongjoong’s hand into both of his own and pulling it close to his lips.

He inhales the fresh, floral, musky scent of his skin and an abrupt series of memories plays in his mind, pushing away all the confusion, the pain and the darkness that have been fogging it, to make room for the brightness of the moments they shared together, and for a second Youngjo isn’t there, on the cold ground, anymore: he is soaring again in the night sky, holding Hongjoong in his safe embrace under the constellations, caressed by the moonlight. He feels his heartbeat against his chest again. He hears his laughter echo in his mind, like a thousand silver bells, again. He feels his heart overwhelmed with love again. And slowly, longingly, wistfully, Youngjo brings Hongjoong’s hand closer and closer to his lips, so close he can almost taste his skin. Then, ever so delicately, he presses a light kiss on his knuckles. It doesn’t last longer than a heartbeat, yet that ephemeral, impalpable, swift contact is enough to make him weep.

There is a gentle air motion and, right after that, Youngjo feels Hongjoong laying down on the ground in front of him, their nosetips barely touching, while his lean fingers travel all the way to his hairline and slowly, delicately delve through the thick locks of his raven black mane, brushing through them in a sluggishly relaxing pace, so lightly and calmly that his gestures almost feels like an unspoken lullaby, taking him to a place of comfort and deep distension.

Only when he begins to calm down, only when his heart beats in a tamer way and his nerves are not on the verge of jolting at the slightest contact anymore, Hongjoong begins to speak with gentle, soothing whispers.

“Youngjo, you won’t send me away. You just won’t. Nothing you can say or do will be enough to banish me from your side. Remember? I said I would have only wanted to be next to you. I promised I would have never let go of your heart, and I meant every single word. So no, Youngjo, I respectfully don’t give a damn about what you’d rather: there is no way I can respect your will when it conflicts with an oath I made, and you need to understand that my decisions are mine to make. It is not something you have power on. I intend to stick to every single word I spoke, I’m not going anywhere, surely not without you, and I’m not going to desert you just because that’s what you expect is going to happen, just because your perception of yourself is flawed. You’re right on one thing: I don’t know what is going to happen to you, I know nothing about your people, but I know love, and that is more than enough for me to say that I’m not afraid to face it and I’m willing to go through anything for you. You can’t scare me, for I know your heart. You could never. I’m here with you and I’m going to stay. You may have power over many creatures, but not on me. I will keep your hands tightly wrapped into mine. I will pick up the tears from your eyes, one by one, and replace them with the brightest, purest petals. I will kiss the wounds and adore the scars along your body, for they will trace a map of beauty and glory all over you. I will love you at your weakest, at your darkest, at your angriest, at your saddest, just like I did at your fiercest. I will cherish you at every moment, in the darkest hour as in the brightest one, I will make you brave when you won’t be able to be brave yourself, I will fight for you when your strengths will fall short, I will hold you together when you will feel yourself falling apart, and there will never be a time when I will love you any less or when I will think any less of you than what I have always done. I know love, Youngjo. And this is what love does. Love stays, and so will I. Understood?”

Instead of giving him the time to formulate an actual answer, though, Hongjoong stretches his neck forward and closes the distance between Youngjo’s lips and his ones, tenderly keeping them captive in a kiss they both have been longing for so desperately, after being forced by the odds to be kept apart from each other for such a long time. Kissing Hongjoong again is the most overwhelming feeling the Somnus has experienced in a long time: the touch of his lips sparks a kaleidoscope of contrasting emotions in Youngjo’s chest, but that bright, shining explosion of millions of particles of pure love, joy and adoration lighting up his soul and setting his heart on fire for Hongjoong doesn’t last long.

Soon enough, before he knows or understands why, that same burst of light collapses on itself and every single spec of it is sucked in by a centripetal vortex of darkness.

A sinister laughter creeps from the back of his head.

And it doesn’t matter that Hongjoong is covering his face with sweet pecks, it doesn’t matter if he’s holding his head and gently cuddling him, it doesn’t matter if he keeps on whispering soft reassuring words to his ears: all he can hear is that damned voice roaring through his mind and making its way to monopolize his attention.

_Oh, the things you’d do for love._

_Even more so, the things you’ve done._

_Look at you now, Youngjo, the former Prince of one of the highest and most noble lineage of magical creatures, now decaying into a foul creature, a parasite, an Incubus._

_Ironically enough, I’m here right because of all the poor decisions you have made because of this little winged nobody._

_I guess I should be grateful, right?_

_I’m sure you’re not, though._

_Isn’t it funny how all these events have sparked just because you, the Great Youngjo, fell like a child for this minor creature and thought it would have been a great idea to throw everything you had, everything you were, to the weeds?_

_Seriously, how could you have made it this far in life with such a pathetic mindset?_

_...Preying on you has been so easy. So, so easy. I have never taken over someone in such an immediate way like I did with you, felt like stealy candy to a kid._

_All it took was a tiny spark of doubt in your mind and boom, you were off to the races._

_But I guess that’s what happens when the spoiled child sees himself denied what he wants: he stomps his feet and says mommy is bad for taking away his favourite toy._

_And now here you are._

_Rotting._

_Withering._

_All because mommy said you couldn’t fuck a flower fairy and I made you believe that you actually could… So, Youngjo, how do you feel? Go ahead, share your thoughts with the class. We’re listening._

“I’d appreciate if you’d shut up.” Youngjo doesn’t even realize he said it out loud until he feels Hongjoong’s hands stop their light movements and his whispers going silent out of the blue.

Then, he feels him shifting away and distancing himself, and Youngjo’s heart is suddenly shattered like a crystal, in a thousand sharp, cold shards that cut his soul.

“No, no, not you… Hongjoong… Please, I was not talking to you…” He begs, looking for him with his hands blindly groping the air around him, frantically, while his heartbeat grows more and more anxious with each passing second as Youngjo feels completely lost without Hongjoong next to him.

“Hongjoong, I’m begging, I’m telling the truth… You can’t leave! Hongjoong! Hongjoong… Please… Please don’t leave me…” At this point, Youngjo’s voice doesn’t even sound like he’s speaking anymore. It’s the lonesome wail of a wounded animal, and just like an old lion, Youngjo rolls up on himself and meekly weeps, more miserable and shattered than ever.

He lets his tears roll down his face and drip on the soil, barely making any sound, biting his lips as he tries to keep as quiet as he can, sucking in the whimpers, but in spite of all his efforts, his body betrays him and begins to shake violently under the uncontrollable impulses of his collapsing neurological system.

Youngjo would like to stand up, but the shivers are so overwhelming that his arms fail to help him even pulling himself up. Getting on his feet is clearly out of the question.

Defeated, abased, wretched, Youngjo gives up on attempting anything different than laying down, cursing his mother for forsaking him and crying his heart out.

“ _Hongjoong_ …” he sighs, in a breath.

“Youngjo?” Suddenly Hongjoong’s voice is there again, suddenly he feels his hands brushing through his hair again, suddenly his smell is there again, and it’s all so quick that Youngjo’s heart sinks in his chest, trembling with fear. “Youngjo, what’s going on? Why are you crying and begging me to stay?”

Youngjo freezes on the spot, going from his wild shivers to complete motionlessness. 

“I won’t leave your side, I already told you before, love. I’m here to stay.” The Flos gently reassures him, wrapping his lean arms around his neck and filling his nostrils with his beautiful, familiar, soothing scent.

“So...You never left my side?” Mutters Youngjo, petrified, as he tries to ground himself back to reality by frantically touching Hongjoong’s forearms, caressing his skin, pinching his flesh.

“Of course not, you big dummy. -There is pause, in Hongjoong’s words, and Youngjo can almost hear the gears in his mind working at full speed, catching up with the unsettling singularity of that happenstance- Youngjo, what does it mean? What is happening?” He asks, and this time his tone is sensibly different. 

It’s heavy with terror and inquietude. 

It’s uncertain. 

It’s panicked.

_Aww, would you look at him, Youngjo? He’s trying to think!_

_What a cute, smart cookie! Definitely worth a lifetime of damnation and despair!_

_Choices. I guess._

“I think you should know the truth and that you should know it from me, Hongjoong…” Youngjo mutters in a strange way: his mouth is dry and his brittle lips hurt every time he tries to speak, so his words come out slurred and imprecise.

“I think you should drink something, first.” Hongjoong retaliates, and even though it seems a suggestion, the Somnus can definitely tell by his tone that it’s anything but that.

Youngjo nods, acknowledging that any form of resistance will be absolutely pointless, and opens up his mouth to drink whatever is contained in the stone bowl that Hongjoong presses on his lips. 

As soon as the Somnus takes a sip, though, he is almost nauseated by the bitter herbal taste of the liquid and instinctively squints, making a disgusted face.

“Come on, big baby! You have to drink all of it, it’s good for you.” The Flos speaks almost as if he was reprimanding him, but there is a softness in his words that gives away all of his endearment and care.

“But it tastes horrible!” Youngjo whines, still making weird faces that evidently have to be very funny, since Hongjoong can’t hold in a loud laughter.

“Many things taste horrible in this world, love, and yet most people don’t complain about having them in their mouths, so you might as well make an effort. Plus, this is a medicine, and medicines are not supposed to taste good, they’re supposed to be efficient. -Hongjoong says, forcing him to drink more and carefully waiting for him to swallow every sip of it- If you ask me, the way I see it, medicines work pretty much like a double negative: they taste bad because their duty is to remove something equally bad from your body. I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s just something that makes me feel it’s worth the hassle.”

Once Youngjo has drunk all of that weird concoction, oddly enough he feels like he has regained some of his forces. His mouth feels better and so does his mind.

He’s ready to talk.

With Hongjoong’s help, he manages to sit in a more proper way, pushed against the rock wall at his back, his wings still plopping on his shoulders as a deadweight, lifeless, but his body being overall in way less pain than before.

“Hold my hand.” Youngjo asks, turning his palms upward and waiting for Hongjoong’s hands to gently sit in his own before getting into the whole story. 

“This will neither be easy for me to tell nor for you to understand, love, and I don’t know how much more will I be as lucid as I am right now, so we need to make the most of the time we have. I’ll do my best to make it quick and simple, but please, Hongjoong, listen carefully and do not interrupt me.” Youngjo says, dryly, as he tightens his grip around Hongjoong’s hands, as if the tactile impulse alone was enough to give him the grasp of the severity of the circumstances.

Then, with a deep sigh and a heavy heart, he begins to speak.

“Hongjoong, my adored, I believe I have sealed my fate in an irreversible way that will only leave us a few days of time to be together, at most.

You see, when a Somnus is born, he bears a great responsibility with himself, since we have a delicate, precious, divine mission in our life, and our mission requires us to be constantly devoted to our duty, and our duty only. We bring salvation in the form of dreams to the most pious creatures, we craft illusions of paradise for mortals, so that we can encourage them in being their very best selves and reward them for their moral rectitude. In order to do that, as you might imagine, us Somni need to be perfect harbingers of righteousness ourselves, abiding by an incredibly strict code of ethical principles dictated to us by our mother, Jiwoo, the Goddess of Justice. I have, for many years, abided to all those principles to the best of my faculties and, dare I say, have been the most perfect Somnus I could have possibly been. My mother loved me very much, and so did my siblings. But here is one thing about Somni and the our bond with Jiwoo: we owe her absolute and undisputed obedience. This is the core principle we cannot, under any circumstance, trespass. And that is exactly what I did. I trespassed my oath of obedience and rebelled against my own mother, betraying her, our Law and my whole kin, by refusing to give up on what she asked me to sacrifice. Don’t ask what it was or why I did what I did. Just know that the price was unacceptable. But in the moment I made my decision and stood for myself, my soul was tainted by my selfishness and my mother cursed me by splitting my soul in two. She has condemned me to the most horrible fate possible for a Somnus: I am irreversibly decaying into darkness and, soon enough, you will not be able to recognise me. I will turn into an Incubus, Hongjoong. I have no idea if you know what Incubi are, but… I won’t be myself anymore. I already am not who I was anymore. My mind, just like my soul, is broken, and I constantly hear a voice, surfacing from the abyss of the unconscious, calling me and dragging me down. My wounds will heal, but my body will be changed forever. My wings will be able to fly again, but it will never be the elegant soaring I was used to. It’ll more likely be a graceless, limping flapping. I will become a parasite, living off of the fear I cause in the mind of the wicked. My siblings won’t be my brothers, for we will all be too busy fighting for our own existence to develop any form of brotherly love, we will only be warped in an endless survival of the fittest. I’ll be alone, forever, and I will never know joy or love anymore. My life will be cut to a mere struggle for survival. I will be alive, but I will not live a life worthy of that name ever again.

And now, Hongjoong, for the hard part. 

As you might understand, I will become a danger to you. It is very likely that, once my mind will be completely swallowed by the dark fumes of horror, I might not recognise you and see you as a threat. I possibly might even harm you. That is the last thing I would ever want. So you need to promise me, right here, right now, that, when the time will come and I will not be myself anymore, you will have mercy on me and give me a honorable ending.”

There is a long pause after Youngjo finishes speaking.

Hongjoong is so annihilated by his lover’s words that he cannot even oppose to his wish. He wishes he could have a violent reaction, but he feels too numb to actually say anything, overwhelmed by the desperate plea. He stays silent as a single, lonely tear inexorably rolls down his eyes, caresses his cheek, kisses his lips, falls from his chin. 

The moment Hongjoong moves his lips to give Youngjo his answer, though remaining perfectly still, Hongjoong feels a staggering pain to his chest and a crack tearing his heart to pieces, shattering it like ice.

“I can’t.” He whispers, choking a sigh in his throat. “Youngjo… I can’t. You can’t ask me that, you…”

He holds Youngjo’s hands, as an amulet of some sort to hold himself together, and then curls up on his lap, tired, defeated, resting his head against his chest. 

When he says he would do anything for Youngjo, Hongjoong means it with all his heart, with every fiber of his being, but there are some sacrifices that cannot be made, not even for love.

In a way, it would be easier, Hongjoong thinks, if it was about giving his life for his lover. If Youngjo had asked him that, he would have agreed in the blink of an eye and with no afterthought whatsoever.

At least, he would have known that his life had served the most noble purpose of all.

He would have been true to his nature as a Flos: protecting nature’s balance and innocent lives at all costs.

And what life can be deemed to be more sacred than a Somnus’ one?

Even more so, what greater good can be fathomed than sacrificing himself for love? 

Slowly and with quite some effort, Youngjo is able to coordinate his arms and to wrap them around the lean, small body of the Flos, trying his hardest not to be harsh or involuntarily jerky in his movements. As soon as he’s enveloped in Youngjo’s embrace, a deep sigh leaves Hongjoong’s lips, as if he was releasing the weight of the world from his chest. It’s too late when the horrid thought comes to him. It’s too late when he realises that he has absolutely no power and that, for as much as he despises it, the time will come for him to face the bottom line of the events concerning the curse placed onto Youngjo. For atrociously inconceivable, the time will come when his words will come true. And then, Hongjoong will not be able to escape and find some twisted, miserable comfort in morbid fantasies. He swallows the bitter bite and clenches his fists until his knuckles turn white.

“You know, the night I met you, _I knew_ . I knew you were too high of a reach for an inferior lineage creature like me. I knew _who_ you were right away. And when you laid your gaze on me, that was enough for me to feel like I was the most blessed creature in the magic realm. When I saw your eyes slowly turn to me, so shining and bright, I was yours. You had my devotion before you even knew me. I loved you from the moment our eyes met and I’ve been longing for that kind of silent contact ever since, counting your every blink and feeling every single one as a quiet caress. From then on, the only light I have been craving to see, at night, was the one in your eyes. Every time I saw you, I couldn’t help but cling onto that precious glistening gaze of yours, like my life depended on that, and every time your feet softly landed on the dewy grass of my vale, I felt a raw pull in my chest leading up to you, so hard I had to fight it to resist the urge to fall into your arms. And when I eventually did fall into your arms, I suddenly knew that I belonged. That’s where I was meant to be. Right there, right then and for all eternity. Into your arms, safe into their hold, listening to your heartbeat, just like I’m doing now, and finding the deepest peace in the rhythmic assertion of your heart that so gracefully reminds me that you are real, that you are alive, and that you’re with me. I knew I loved you ever since I acknowledged how I found the deepest and most intense comfort I had ever experienced in something as essentially natural and inherently vital as the bare sound of your heart. That’s why I can’t give you my word… That’s why you can’t ask me that… You… You can’t ask me to violate not only my nature, but to also go against my feelings. You can’t decide to put me into the position of having to do something so atrocious…” Without noticing, Hongjoong’s voice gets feebler with every word he says, until he’s practically sighing and whispering by the end of his speech, his lashes wet with round, clear tears that look like morning dew precariously hanging on fern leaves.

He presses his swollen, reddened lips together and swallows a mouthful of tears and sadness, before melting down in Youngjo’s embrace, crying uncontrollably.

Then, the two fall asleep together and, once again, Youngjo dreams.

He’s in the field of thorns again. It’s darker than in the first dream. He sees the shining flower, once again, but this time the more he walks towards it, the more fatigued he feels. Just like the first time, the field turns into a mountain of thorns he has to climb, but this time, when he gets on all fours and excruciatingly struggles to reach for its summit, an uncountable number of shriveled, inhuman, dark hands, with gnarled joints and long, hard nails suddenly grasp around Youngjo’s wrists and ankles, like bear traps, immobilizing him and pulling him down by digging deep into his skin, ripping it apart, mangling his flesh.

This time, Youngjo feels pain, but nonetheless his eyes are inamovible from the white flower. In spite of the hurt running through all his body and making him shiver feverishly, Youngjo keeps on climbing, pulling his limbs away from the grasp of those hands with a brute force that, at that point, he would have sworn he could never have had in himself. He breaks their fingers, he crushes their knuckles, he lets himself loose and sucks in the staggering pangs in his chest, focusing only on the flower. 

That’s all he can see.

That’s all that matters to him, anyway, and is definitely all he can think of while he sweats and he bleeds and he curses and he growls.

When he reaches for the summit of the mountain of thorns, exhausted, out of breath, weakened and drained, though, he notices how the environment surrounding him suddenly changes after he is hit by some exceptionally powerful and cold wind flurries, strong enough to push him down and force him to cover his face with his hands. When the wind calms down, Youngjo takes a look around: he is not on top of the mountain of thorns anymore. 

He’s in his nest. 

The white, glistening flower is still there, though, at its center.

Hesitantly crawling on his hands and knees, Youngjo grabs the flower by the stem and tries to pluck it, but it is surprisingly heavy, so much that he needs to force himself to wobbingly stand on his feet, legs spread and pitched to the ground the best way he can, to have a tighter grip.

He tries and tries and tries to pull the flower from the twigs of his nest, and once he succeeds, he falls on his back, bringing with himself not only the flower, but also whatever is attached to it. 

When Youngjo checks out what it is, he is horrified: lying in front of him, completely englobed in clear crystal, his fingers conjoined to the root of the white flower, there is Hongjoong’s dead body.

Youngjo screams, but no sound comes out of his mouth. 

He screams louder, and still nothing.

Then, he feels a grip tightening around his neck and is filled with abhorrence when he lowers his gaze: all those hands, that were grabbing onto him and pulling him down during his climb on the mountain of thorns, are slowly crawling all over his body, dragging him down into his own nest, immobilizing him, choking his throat, ripping his wings, shutting his eyes.

  
  


* * *

As the days go by, Hongjoong never leaves Youngjo’s side, not even for a second.

Taking care of him becomes the center of his world and the main focus of his life, to the point that he sometimes forgets to eat or sleep when Youngjo has nightmares, or is feverish, or passes out, things which, progressively, start to happen more and more often.

Powerless but relentless, Hongjoong does everything in his power to delay the effects of the curse, but in vain.

More often than not, Youngjo is delirious and muttering nonsense he doesn’t understand, or that he just pretends to not hear.

Every single day, he decides to ignore the blatant signs of the curse taking over Youngjo: diligently, he holds his hands as he feeds him or forces him to drink, he caresses his hair and massages his temples to make him fall asleep, he cleans him up and changes his robes.

Every single day, he notices Youngjo’s body decaying and his mind becoming impenetrable, distant, unreceptive.

Nonetheless, Hongjoong has never been one to give up on his crusades, and with quiet courage he strives to keep up his fight, even against the inevitable.

When he knows that Youngjo is even barely alert, he places his lover’s head on his lap and softly begins to talk to him, with the gentlest tone he can muster, about the reasons why he loves him, one reason every day. Hongjoong doesn’t know if he does that to help Youngjo or to help himself, overwhelmed by sorrow and grief as he is: what he knows is that he means to leave no stone unturned, and if something, even just apparently, seems to give the slightest comfort to Youngjo’s suffering, then it is worth pursuing.

But the more time passes and the more the signs of his transformation become visible: his wings, once thickened by beautiful fuzzy, glossy feathers, are now almost glabrous, resembling more and more the ones of a bat, skeletal, fragile, knobbly, cartilaginous. His body and face look sick, emaciated and weak. His eyes barely move from under his lids, most of the time when he is sleeping, but his lashes are so tightly sealed by a weird, persistent, black crust that doesn’t allow them to open; whilst his hands have dramatically changed their shape to a more elongated, slender, gnarled one and long, dark, sturdy claws, much like the ones of a bird of prey, have replaced his nails. 

Hongjoong still holds Youngjo’s hands in his own and presses them on his heart, in spite of how dramatically different they look now, with the same identical devotion with which he has always held them. 

He does it to let Youngjo know he’s still next to him when his mind seems to be deaf to his words and beyond any chance of communication.

Sometimes, it seems to be working.

Other days, well, _most of them_ , Youngjo feels so distant that Hongjoong wholeheartedly wishes he were in his place, bearing his burden.

What Hongjoong can’t conceive, for as much as he tries to put himself in Jiwoo’s place and adapt to her perspective ad Goddess of Justice, is where would justice itself lay in placing such a blatantly crude and intrinsically unfair curse on her own favorite child. Why would a Goddess, in her infinite wisdom and unparalleled comprehension of the things of the living, want to inflict that condemn on the one creature she should love the most? Why does a creature as precious and as irreplaceable as Youngjo have to be condemned to face such a cruel fate? Why would anyone, and even more specifically, why would Jiwoo want to deprive the world from the biggest gift she herself had given to it, the Prince of her own lineage? And then again, what could have Youngjo possibly done of so preposterous to require a punishment of that kind? 

Those questions have been crossing Hongjoong’s mind and haunting his thoughts all the time. 

For as much a he would be in the position to demand an explanation, he does not dare to ask. 

Mostly because Youngjo told him not to. 

Moreover, because he’s not sure he wants to know.

There’s so many things that are naturally precluded to a creature like him that, maybe, if this is the true face of the Gods and if they manifest their rage with these sort of retaliations, carelessly of their victims, then Hongjoong’s incapability to understand is for the better. 

The least noble are some creatures, the freer, for they hold less knowledge of the Eternals’ Law, of the mystical secrets it is embedded with, of the universal truths enclosed in its most secreted principles. 

Only the highbornes are supposed to be revealed the Eternals’ Law in its entirety, and knowledge means constraint, for it implies the disclosure of a series of truths that, once acknowledged, cannot be ignored. 

Once the deepest secrets of that code are disclosed, they become a vinculating moral code to which the highborne are compelled to abide by.

Hongjoong and all his Flores siblings are not supposed to know more than the very basic elements of it, which grants them a simpler, more independent and, in a way, happier existence, but now that his beloved’s life is at stake, Hongjoong doesn’t know what to do.

Or even better, he knows what to do.

He doesn’t know, though, whether he _should_.

Though he might not be allowed to get close to know some of those truths, indeed his mother would know.

His mother would maybe be able to do something.

But reaching out for Somin is not as easy as one would think and, on top of that, Hongjoong knows that bringing up Youngjo’s curse means, consequently, to bring up his mother’s lover, Jiwoo. 

And if he were to do that, in all honesty, whose word would his mother pay more attention to? His one or Jiwoo’s?

Hongjoong is well aware that, if he decides to carry out his plans and ask for Somin’s intervention in that whole matter, that would mean, at the very least, to go down an extremely slippery slope, and even if he did involve her, that would not grant him his mother’s favor. 

She might decide to not get in between Jiwoo’s decisions in regards to her own son, and rightfully so.

But, on the other hand, what is left for Hongjoong to do? 

What else could he try?

Who else could he turn to?

His thoughts are abruptly interrupted by Youngjo grabbing his wrist, surprisingly tight.

In the blink of an eye, Hongjoong is sitting by his side, wetting his lips with a soaked silk napkin and delicately brushing away the sweaty hair locks from his forehead.

"Hongjoong, I’m so tired...I can't do this anymore..." Youngjo then whispers, visibly struggling to put his words together as he furrows his brows, looking for Hongjoong’s face with his palms.

"Do what?" The Flos asks, trying to hide under a thick coating of gentleness the crippling fear.

He knows _exactly_ what Youngjo is talking about. He has been unsuccessfully trying to prepare himself for so long for that moment, and yet Hongjoong feels as if the world is falling down on his shoulders with the same speed and violence of an avalanche.

"This. Whatever... Whatever this is... We both know it can't go on. And I can't do this. I can't become an Incubus… Please, Hongjoong, you can’t condemn me to a life as a parasite. You can’t want this for me. You have to kill me. You have to kill me before the darkness does. Before everything I ever was and all I ever felt will disappear once and for all. The time is coming, Love. It's drawing nearer." With every word coming out of his mouth, Youngjo looks visibly drained.

He takes long pauses to wet his lips and to thoroughly think of his words, in order to convey all of his suffering to Hongjoong. He needs him to see the factual reality. He needs him to give up on his stubbornness and to understand that there is no way out, not for him, not without accepting to become an abomination.

For as much as he tries to oppose resistance to the growing darkness within him, Youngjo knows that he’s close to the point of no return.

He needs Hongjoong to understand, before the voice will take over.

He needs Hongjoong to understand, before it’s too late. 

Before he will become an emptied shell, a pale shadow, an inconsistent copy of who he was, devoid of any humanity and of any feelings other than need and greed.

"How can you even say that?" Hongjoong whispers through the faint sighs he tries to conceal, but unsuccessfully. 

"I know it Hongjoong..." At this point, Youngjo isn’t even trying to hide his desperation anymore. 

He’s begging. 

There’s no more room for his pride, it’s not a matter of dignity or haughtiness anymore. It’s about Hongjoong’s safety, since he doesn’t know whether he could potentially hurt him once he’s completely turned into an Incubus, and about escaping once and for all his twisted fate.

"This is just...nonsense. You cannot know such things." The Flos’ voice is more weary than angry, Youngjo can feel it in his tone.

"I know this thing." He whispers, holding Hongjoong’s hand close to his heart and lightly brushing with his thumb on his soft skin.

Hongjoong has always had these smooth, slightly puffy, tiny hands that feel like flower petals to the touch… His hands, their gentle touch, their faint perfume really make Youngjo wish he had more time.

Everything he can remember about Hongjoong makes Youngjo want to live, and yet everything he knows about Incubi makes him want to die. 

If he ignores his knowledge and indulges just for the sake of being egoistic and having more time, as much time as possible with the one he loves, Youngjo knows he is not going to honor the love he has for him. He cannot afford to be selfish. He needs to be courageous, until the very end. Even though he has failed, even though he has disappointed and betrayed his mother, his siblings, his whole kin, even though he has disgraced them by falling into the traps of his Ego, Youngjo intends to be the most fulgid and, at least morally, splendid Somnus the world has ever seen.

If he cannot be the Prince of the Somni anymore, if he can’t be the example for all of his brothers to see and follow, it doesn’t mean that he cannot be a bulwark of courage, dignity and integrity at all.

If he has to die, then Youngjo wishes to do it just as he has lived: in moral perfection and walking in the absolute light of justice.

Not the justice of Jiwoo.

His own justice. 

The justice he owes to himself, and to Hongjoong as well.

"Oh, really? And How? How do you know it?" Hongjoong insists, through the tears.

"...Because I can't remember your face. All I see is darkness, in my mind. It’s taking over everything and it is swallowing my memories, Hongjoong. All of them. Even the memories of us. Of you. Please don’t let me live a life where I have forgotten about you and the love we had. Please don’t do this to me. I have to go, and you have to do it. It cannot be anyone else. It’s got to be you."

Then, they both stay silent for a while, the quiet is only punctuated here and there by the Flos sniffling and sighing, but in such a demure way that it is barely audible.

Even then, Hongjoong tries to put himself after Youngjo and to conceal his heartbreak in any way he can, though he has to acknowledge that now is the time for action. He has postponed way too long, buying time to figure out what to do, but now that it is all coming back to him there is no room for hesitation.

Youngjo feels Hongjoong moving and pulling out of his hold.

He would want to ask him to not leave him, to not go away, to stay next to him, but in the end, Youngjo knows he has already been asking way too much of Hongjoong, and that if he needs a break, he should have it. It’s already too much. He cannot expect him to sit next to him, counting down the minutes until the end.

Nonetheless, he cannot avoid trying to trace the direction of Hongjoong’s nervous footsteps as he paces back and forth, storming the ground in a way he has never heard him doing before.

“I’ll be back soon. Try to rest while I’m gone.” Hongjoong eventually says when he’s about to leave.

“Where are you going?” Youngjo asks, feeling scared and lonely like never before, a subtle trembling shaking his voice.

“To save you.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Youngjo opens his eyes and realizes he’s back in one of his dreams.

He’s standing on the side of the one that looks like a volcano, uneasy on his feet, struggling to walk on scorching black rocky scales, streaked here and there by streams of lava and crevices from which flames and lapilli stretch out to meet the heavy, foggy air.

Everything is dark, including the pitch black sky, covered with thick clouds from which cinders are falling all around him.

Youngjo takes a moment to take a look at his limbs and shivers with horror: his skin is blackened and scaly, much like the one of a dragon, both his hands and feet feature sharp black claws, his wings have turned into bat-like ones and there’s something weighing at his lower back. When he turns around, he is suddenly struck by the sight of a long, strong, black tail, constellated by lengthy osseous spikes along its ridge.

_So, how do you like us?_

_Let me tell you, we look mighty._

Youngjo presses his lips together, recognising the voice in his mind.

He looks at the environment surrounding him and carefully studies it as he walks towards the volcano.

Somehow, he just knows he has to climb it.

It has always been like that, in his dreams, so why would this one make any difference?

_Rude._

_You know you won’t be able to ignore me forever, right?_

_I mean, you actually can, but do you want to know the fun part?_

_I will win._

_I always win._

_I will end up taking control over this beautiful, strong body of yours, the body I gave you, to be precise, and there’s nothing you will be able to do about it._

_Wait, wait, I know what you’re thinking and… Oh please, Youngjo, don’t make me laugh._

_You can’t be serious when you think that little midget is going to even stand a chance against me, against a curse of a Goddess._

_What is he going to do?_

_Cuddle you and cry?_

“You don’t know him.” Youngjo growls through his gritting teeth, as he continues to walk on the bare stones, along the path towards the summit of the volcano “And you don’t know me either. You might live inside of me, you might be aware of my thoughts, but you don’t know my heart and underestimating that was your mistake from the beginning.”

His body feels so different from what he is used to, even from his other dreams: it is heavier, ungainly, awkward, almost as if it wasn’t supposed to be standing in an erect stance, but rather on all fours. As if he was meant to crawl, like an animal.

Though Youngjo realizes that he would be faster if he seconded that primal instinct, telling him to get down on his hands and knees, he tries with all of himself to not succumb to that and keep his stern posture, even though it means tumbling several times, being hurt by lava splatters and earning himself a series of deep cuts on the sharp rocks. He’s not giving up on the only one which feels like his true nature. Nonetheless, a shiver runs down his spine when he notices that the blood coming out of his wounds is not red anymore: it’s thicker and black and it burns on his skin.

Youngjo feels the instinct to lick it.

_Would you look at yourself?_

_You stubborn idiot._

_What do you think you are doing?_

_Do you seriously believe that acting all high and mighty is going to make any difference?_

_Youngjo, you’re not just delusional, you are unbelievably stupid._

_I’m beginning to question my sense of judgment at this point._

_You seemed like such a perfect host in the beginning, but I must reconsider._

_You are not a Somnus worthy of the name. Never have been._

_You are a joke, Youngjo._

“Oh, really, am I? Then tell me why are you still here. If you so despise me, you might want to leave.” Youngjo retaliates, too focused on the climb to actually give any care about that hateful voice in his mind trying to sabotage him.

The more he walks, the more brittle and steep the stone side of the volcano becomes.

As he gets closer to the summit, the smoke is so thick and dark and the air is so heavy with humidity and dust that Youngjo is barely able to breathe.

Cinders fall from the obscure fog, burning his skin as they hit him.

He tries to gasp for air, but he only seems to swallow ashes and dust instead.

Bruised, wounded, limping, Youngjo eventually arrives at the top of the volcano and there, glowing in the dense smokescreen that envelops everything around him, he sees _him_ : dressed in a flowy white robe, perfectly still on his knees, Hongjoong sits on the brim of the crater with his eyes closed, holding the silver flower against his chest. 

When he notices Youngjo’s presence, he opens his eyes and a faint, enigmatic smile surges on his lips, curling the angles of his mouth upwards ever so slightly.

There’s a pull in the Somnus’ chest telling him to run to him, to save him, to take him away from there, but his body seems to be incapable to follow the pace that his mind wants impose him. He still thinks of himself as a Somnus, so the first instinct he has is that to spread his wings, remembering way too late that his new ones wouldn’t be even capable to lift up a mouse, let alone his whole weight. After several failed attempts to fly, Youngjo tries to run on the edge of the caldera, feeling the ground pulverizing and crumbling under his steps while he rushes to save Hongjoong from that nightmare as fast as he possibly can, stumbling on the tail that gets between his feet, the sharp spikes tarnishing his own skin and ripping shreds of flesh apart.

In spite of how extremely real the pain feels, Youngjo keeps his eyes on Hongjoong, and on Hongjoong only, who, in spite of the circumstance, seems absolutely detached from everything happening around him and _disturbingly_ serene as he lulls the flower in his arms. 

As for himself, Hongjoong’s incolumity is the only thing Youngjo can think of and, when he finally reaches for him and pulls him at his chest, the volcano stops crumbling on himself and, all of a sudden, time seems to stop all around them.

“I got you… I got you love… Just on time. Are you hurt?” He asks, clearly distressed, as he holds Hongjoong as close as he can to his heart.

“What are you talking about, Youngjo? Why would I be hurt?” Hongjoong asks in return, with a voice that is both calm and surprised at the same time.

_Yeah, Youngjo, why would he be hurt?_

_Don’t you see?_

_He’s perfectly safe._

_What are you even worrying about?_

_Your little flower fairy is safe and sound, always has been._

_Well...at least for now._

_You, instead… Are you alright?_

_Look around you, Youngjo. Are you alright?_

_Do you even know where you are?_

_Do you even know what is real anymore?_

_Think about it. I’ll give you time to reflect._

Youngjo looks around himself, confused, circumspect, arms still clenched around Hongjoong’s frame, his fingers almost digging in the soft skin of his back as a kind of a reality check.

The barren volcanic landscape begins to fade in front of his eyes, particle by particle, dissolving into thin air just as easily as it had appeared.

Once again, Youngjo is left in the annihilating darkness of his mind and without noticing he tightens his grasp around the Flos, almost as if his life depended on that.

Hongjoong winces when the Somnus’ nails involuntarily scratch him.

He is real. He _has to_ be real. 

“Ouch! Youngjo, stop this, you’re scaring me!” He says, and for the first time ever since they have met, Youngjo can feel Hongjoong being scared of him.

He is… pulling away from him?

But why?

“Youngjo, please, this is not funny. Let me go, you’re hurting me. Please… Youngjo, I can’t breathe if you hold me like this...” Hongjoong pleads, pushing with his small fists against Youngjo’s chest, trying to divinculate himself from his grasp.

For as much as Youngjo would like to loosen up his hold, though, his arms do not follow his mind’s orders and, instead of letting Hongjoong go, they only tighten up around him further.

“What… What is happening…” Youngjo whispers, tears forming at the corners of his eyes as a sense of desperation and pure panic takes over him.

_Come on now, Youngjo, let him be._

_Don’t you see you’re scaring him?_

_Oh wait… You can’t!_

_What is happening, you say? I thought you’d never ask._

_See, this is nothing. Actually, it’s just the beginning, a simple yet, I believe, quite effective demonstration of what I can make you see, of what I can make you believe, of what I can make you do without you even noticing._

_Everything you have done so far, you have done because I wanted you to, because I made you or because I allowed you._

_You don’t own yourself anymore._

_See this body of yours? It is mine to play with, and your mind, your wishes, your thoughts mean absolutely nothing._

_You have no discretionality whatsoever anymore over how you want to use it._

_What now, Youngjo?_

_Not feeling so haughty anymore?_

_What happened to your stern and arrogant manners?_

_Cat caught your tongue?_

_Now, I believe you’ll agree that our little friend over here deserves your utmost attention, so I am hereby asking you… How do you want us to kill him?_

_He’s very special actually, he even went to beg Somin to intercede with Jiwoo for your case, definitely not something anyone would have done._

_He really loves you._

_Therefore, the least we could do is give him a fitting end for someone you have put through so much pain and sufferance._

_Can you believe all the things he has done for you, without ever questioning, without a complaint, consuming himself in the sleepless nights and the restless days spent taking care of your miserable self? And for what? To save you?_

_You disgusting, selfish abomination._

_You were beyond saving from the beginning._

_And now, he’s beyond saving as well._

_As a freshly turned Incubus, you will need lots of energy to sustain yourself, which mostly comes from fear and horror… And what a better source, for that, than the delightful despair that you little fairy is exuding right now?_

_Feel it, Youngjo. Focus on how he’s squirming and wincing and trembling and writhing in your arms as we speak._

_He’s terrified._

_He is terrified of you._

_And your body is reacting to that kind of terror with the primal enticement of a predator, which, by the way, is what you are._

_Can you feel the blood pumping through your veins like bellows, fueling a raw, unending hunger coming from your guts? Get used to it. This is going to be your one and ultimate drive in life, from now on._

_Now, to give your metamorphosis the proper inauguration… Shall we proceed?_

The words coming from the voice in his mind have Youngjo petrified and appalled by a sense of hopelessness he now figures had only had a taste of, until that moment.

It cannot be.

His life cannot be doomed to become that absolutely meaningless and insignificant chase of mere instincts’ fulfillment.

He cannot allow that.

He must not allow that.

But the only way out he has does not depend on him in any way, devoid as he is of any chance of agency. He has to rely on Hongjoong. He needs Hongjoong to put an end to that, to put an end to him, before the monster living inside of him and controlling his every move might fulfill his threats and harm him.

The question is- _how_?

How can he bring him to do the one that, Youngjo knows, is the only possible right thing to do?

How can he make him see reason?

But then, while he is trying to think as fast as he can, Youngjo understands that maybe there is still a solution.

Maybe he can trick both Hongjoong and the beast within in order to accomplish his plan with the least collateral damage possible.

Maybe the key has never been _reason_ , but instinct.

For as much as he knows and he has experienced, Flores have very small and weak wings, which they merely use to float for very short distances, but of no essential use for accomplishing their life tasks anyway. Nonetheless, they are largely innerved by several nerve endings, which make them extremely sensitive to the touch. 

If only Youngjo could manage to claw at Hongjoong’s wings, that would be enough to trigger his instinct of self preservation and attack him back with a probably much stronger spell than needed, for he would catch him off guard, and at the same time he could tell the voice to start off by the wings, tricking him into believing that he has finally decided to side with him. 

It’s risky and there is absolutely no guarantee of success, but then again, what else is left for him to do? 

And so, Youngjo decides to take that shot in the dark.

He softly leans his head towards Hongjoong’s face and, after placing a sweet kiss on his cheek, he whispers to his ear: “Forgive me, love.”

Then, he pulls away and mutters, through his teeth: “The wings. We start with the wings, don’t you dare failing me.”

_Ah, at long last._

_I see you want to go with a certain order with him, uh?_

_Are we going for agony?_

_Sounds good to me._

In a flash, with no cognition or control over his movements whatsoever, Youngjo feels his hands clutch, much like a beast’s claws, and viciously sink in the soft, fuzzy wings of Hongjoong, who lets out a loud, ghastly scream filled with pain, terror, betrayal and heartbreak. 

As soon as his shrieks and cries fill Youngjo’s ears, he distinctly perceives his heart shattering, and when Hongjoong’s warm blood streams on his hands, Youngjo wishes he wouldn’t have to withstand the sufferance he caused him and bear the thought of being the reason of his excruciation.

Nonetheless, before he knows, both of Hongjoong’s palms fully hit him in the center of the chest, leaving him breathless.

Suddenly, after weeks of blindness, under the effect of the abrupt blow, Youngjo opens his eyes wide, gasping for air. 

He doesn’t know if it’s the shock or if it’s what he sees in front of him that devastates him the most: Hongjoong is bent on himself, limping, his immaculate robe and his milky skin covered up in his own blood, while glistening tears stream from his eyes along his face warped by the pain. His wings are ripped to shreds and dripping blood, so much that it has formed a dark red pool at his feet.

“Youngjo...why…” Hongjoong says, through the sighs, his fragile body shaken by the sobbing and the shivers and the pangs “Why would you do that…”

Youngjo doesn’t understand, until he takes a more careful look at Hongjoong and notices how his palms are aglow with a faint violet light running in his veins and shining through his skin. The colour of the magic of the Flores.

It has worked.

He was right. 

_No, no, no...NO!_

_You cannot have done that…_

_Youngjo, you fool, you absolute, immense, incredible fool!_

_What have you done?_

_This was not part of our deal… This is not how it was supposed to go!_

“This is exactly how it was supposed to go. Thank you, Love. I’ll love you forever, my flower prince, ruler of my heart, savior of my soul.” Youngjo says in a whisper, smiling as he lowers his gaze to look at his torso and noticing the throbbing reticule of his veins glowing just like Hongjoong’s hands.

Then, with eyes loaded with hot, stinging tears, he looks at Hongjoong with incommensurable gratitude one last time, before falling on his knees and then on the ground.

It’s over.

A few seconds later, Hongjoong slowly and elegantly collapses on himself and falls down as well, trembling and crying, his eyes unwaveringly staring at Youngjo’s motionless body. 

  
  
  


* * *

In the distance, a series of footsteps rushes towards the cave where the horror has just taken place, but clearly not in time to prevent it.

The first light and graceful steps are followed by some heavier ones, accompanied by a loud, metallic clanking.

Two figures, similar in height and frame, but diametrically opposite as for clothing and colors, throw themselves next to Hongjoong and Youngjo.

Somin, the Goddess of Life and Nature, immediately pulls her child in her arms and caresses his pale face. She brings her ear next to his chest and heaves a relieved sigh when she hears his heart beating, but when she looks at his wings, her grieved gaze turns into pure anger. 

“You!” She slithers through her teeth, venomously, jolting towards a still stunned Jiwoo with a fury unknown to most of those who had been blessed by an encounter with the Goddess of Life “Jiwoo, I will hold you responsible for this! Look at my child! Look at him!” Somin screams, her pearlescent skin flushed with red patches on her cheeks and chest, strutting towards her mate with a ferocious stride, until Jiwoo is pushed against the cave’s wall, incapable to escape the wrath of her divine lover.

“How could I have known that-” She tries to interject, but gets instantaneously shut down by the berserkly expression on Somin’s face.

“This… This delirium… This madness… It is all your fault, Jiwoo. Look at this scenario and then try to tell me, as convincing as you can be, that you firmly believe this is not a consequence of your stupid vengeance on your favorite’s slightest disobedience to your will. This is not justice. This is _perversion_ . I have no idea of when or how it happened, but you, Jiwoo, have lost your mind and it has now come the time to stop you once and for all. What did you think you would have proven by condemning your first born, your protégé, to face such a miserable fate? You are so foolishly raptured in your distorted solipsistic dream of a perfect world, where all of your Somni are these _absurdly_ flawless creatures, existing with the only purpose to be shaped by your commandments as you please, whilst, in reality, all you are doing is decimating your highborne children at their slightest falter along the path to excellence. You chastise them when they manifest a glimpse of fallacity, when they don’t bend to your ludicrous desires, until they become either beautiful shells, devoid of any humanity, of any dream of their own, of any joy, completely dedicated to duty, or they end up broken and condemned to an grueling existence. I have been silent for a long time, for the sake of the love that binds us together, believing that, for strict that you were being with your own lineage, it was not up to me to have a say in your actions, but this has gone way too far. This whole matter is not about you and your bloodline anymore. You had no right to harm my child as well. Hongjoong came to me to beg for Youngjo’s redemption… He implored, on his knees, for me to intercede with you. Can you imagine? The purest of the Flores, a creature who has never committed any harm and only brought honor to his kin, begging like a peasant for forgiveness on the one he loves. A forgiveness I cannot concede, since the punishment had been casted on him by you. You have not only taken your child’s life, but almost mine’s one as well. Hongjoong’s life is something that was not for you to interfere with in the first place, but even more tragically, do you realize through how much sufferance you have put Youngjo, the very Prince of Dreams, your most excellent and beloved son, to force him to beg for his end to come? And even more importantly, have you thought, even just for a second, about the loss it would have been for the world? Are you so blinded by your obsession with rebuke to have forgotten that you, just like every other Deity, are here to serve a bigger picture, a greater good, an unalterable balance?”

In the darkness of the cave, furious and mighty as an Erinnis, Somin stands still, fierce, relentless, in all of her irreproachable stature, containing with impeccable composure the fire raging in her soul.

Only her blazing gaze and the rhythmic inflation and deflation of her chest, through the thousands strings of pearls ornating her neck, shoulders and torso, give away the true explosiveness of her emotions’ nature, but besides that her gracefulness and noblesse remain untouched, which is even more terrifying, in Jiwoo’s perspective.

If the sight of Youngjo’s body hadn’t appalled her enough, experiencing all of the rage of her mate is the most overwhelmingly humiliating and grounding experience Jiwoo has ever gone through. Out of habit, her spare hand wraps around the wrist Youngjo broke her, as a sudden stab of pain runs through the tendons and muscles of the joint, softly massaging it.

Before she realizes, Jiwoo feels tears piling up in her eyes and escaping the grip of her long, black lashes.

She would give anything to have him back. 

A clench to her heart makes her collapse on her knees, at long last, with loud clanging noises of her armor pieces clashing on the ground and one against the other, while Jiwoo unsheathes her sword, the same one with which she had condemned Youngjo, to throw it as far as possible, for her offended hand, away from her side.

Then, she slowly pulls away her mail gauntlets and caresses the beautiful features of her son’s face with her bare fingertips, a bitter smile unfolding a fond expression, replacing her usual disdain.

“Have you ever seen anything so perfect it made you want to cry?” Jiwoo whispers, barely moving her lips glazed with tears “You’re right, Somin, I did it all wrong. I wanted my Somni to be this pure lineage made of the bravest, most capable, morally superior beings, but I lost myself and the true meaning of being blessed with such an excellent highborne bloodline in the process. The more time passed, the more I felt like it was never enough. Like I wasn’t doing enough in terms of educating them. Like I wasn’t leading them to a consistent improvement as a species. I had dreams and expectations for all of them, and I couldn’t see i was setting them up for ineluctable failure by setting the bar so high that not even Deities could have lived up to those absurd standards. Not even me. I repressed their identities as if any hint to their personal desires and inclination was a sign of weakness, incapable to see that I was the first one to be blinded by mine. And look at what I have done to him now… My beautiful child… My most perfect son… I failed him. I failed to understand him. I failed to forgive him. I failed to love him like I should have...” 

Slowly, through the metallic, gritting sounds of the chainmail and the armor plates adjusting to her position, Jiwoo lifts Youngjo to rest on her knees and curls down on him, her arms tightly wrapped around his shoulders and her head sunk in the crook of his neck.

“What have I done... Somin… What have I done?” She murmurs, her voice broken by the sighs, while lifting her head ever so slightly, her eyes wondering around, lost and disoriented “If only I could turn back time and make it right… Save my child… Save yours… There’s no price I wouldn’t pay… There’s nothing I wouldn’t do…”

Then, there is a long, silent pause during which both of the Goddesses don’t even dare looking at each other.

The words they have said and the emotions they feel are left to linger in the tense atmosphere between them, saturating the air with static. Sometimes, there is way more wisdom in knowing when to stay silent rather than when to talk, and neither one of them knows what to say.

It feels too soon for forgiveness.

It feels too soon for comfort.

But then, a feeble cough breaks the quiet and both Somin and Jiwoo turn their heads towards Hongjoong.

“Mother… You’ve come…” He mutters, fluttering his lids as he tries to focus on Somin, but his sight doesn’t assist him, still semi-conscious “How is Youngjo? Will he make it? Tell me he will make it, Mother… I’m begging… Please… Tell me that there is still hope…”

And this is when Jiwoo falls apart.

If she has been trying to keep herself together, somehow, until this moment, hearing the little Flos beg for Youngjo’s safety, for his life, caring about him only as soon as he’s regained the slightest consciousness makes Jiwoo cry her heart out and curse at herself, at her foolishness, at her blindness.

She holds Youngjo even harder, kissing his progressively colder cheeks and forehead, as she truly understands the irreversible damage she has done.

“Yes. Yes, my dearest, I believe there is still hope.” All of a sudden, Somin speaks, earning herself a shocked gaze from Jiwoo, who raises her head, in disbelief. 

With light steps, Somin walks up to Jiwoo and kneels down in front of her, placing her hand on Youngjo’s chest, in the exact same spot where Hongjoong has hit him.

“Maybe, there is still something we can do to make it right, isn’t it, Jiwoo?” She says, intensely looking at her lover with kind eyes and a knowing smile 

“A life for a life.” Somin adds, taking Jiwoo’s hands in her own.

“A life for a life.” Jiwoo responds, nodding and smiling through the tears.

“I’ll bring him back, Jiwoo, as the glorious Somnus and Prince of his lineage you have raised and known, in the name of our love, for the sake of your repenting. But I expect you to make amend and forever change your ways. And, Jiwoo, this kind of magic comes with a price. A higher one for you.” The beautiful Goddess of Life makes sure to clearly state all of her conditions before even raising a finger. Without another word, Somin expectantly waits for Jiwoo to answer.

In their world, according to the Eternal Law, nothing comes for nothing and nothing comes from nothing, even among divinities, especially when it comes to Somin and her magic. 

Bringing a creature back to life is demanding in terms of resources and, as a matter of fact, causes an alteration of Nature’s balance which needs to be compensated.

As it can be easily imagined, it is no easy task to top a resurrecting charm.

Jiwoo takes some time to reflect as to what she could possibly offer in return, and then, after a few minutes of reflection, she stands up and walks next to Hongjoong.

“You must be Hongjoong, if I am correct.” She doesn’t really ask, while she kneels down on him and delicately turns him around, wincing, horrified, at the painful sight of his maimed wings.

“Hongjoong, I bow down to you for the faithfulness, the unconditional love, the absolute devotion and the flawless moral stature you have proven to me, my adored child, Youngjo, and all of my offspring. Though I am aware of how fond your mother is of you, and rightfully so, I, as the Goddess of Justice, am the bestower of a magic just as ancient and powerful as hers, voted to the recognition and the consequent rewarding of fairness, loyalty, excellence, selflessness and righteousness. You, more than any other creature I have ever encountered, have proven yourself worthy of my praises and honors, therefore it would be my deepest pleasure to reward you for your services and for your heart’s pureness by welcoming you within my highborne bloodline, the Somni, to join Youngjo as his rightful spouse, if your Divine mother consents.” Jiwoo says, caressing the soft strands of his ripped wings with motherly tenderness, waiting for an answer with anticipation, seeking hints on Somin’s face, that stays perfectly still, until she softly nods.

“We do have a deal, then.” Claims the Goddess of Life “A life for a life.”

“A life for a life.” Answers Jiwoo.

At once, the two goddesses press their hands on their respective children.

After chanting a long series of ritual prayers, Jiwoo picks up her sword from the ground and, without the slightest hesitation, she uses it to tear her cloak to shreds. Then, she ties its extremities together and places it all around Hongjoong, who is still laying on the ground in fetal position, lightly cuts her fingertip to allow a few drops of her blood to drip on his wounds, to seal their new bond and grant him the power to ascend as a Somnus to his new life.

Not even a second goes by before Jiwoo’s golden thunders run through every single fiber of Hongjoong’s body, enveloping him in a blinding halo of clear light and shaking him with waves of pure static from head to toe, with a power such that even the goddess needs to close her eyes for a second, dazzled, not expecting his soul to respond in such a receptive, amplifying way to her magic, almost as if his true potential had just been truly discovered and his deep nature unleashed by her slightest touch.

On the opposite side of the cave, instead, the melodious voice of Somin speaks the unknown words of an ancient language, unknown to most beings. Every breath that leaves her mouth forms glowing streaks of lilac light in the air, which elegantly float around her for a few seconds, before harshly falling to the ground and imprinting a sequence of runes all around Youngjo.

Without stopping her chant, Somin then kneels down and vigorously pushes both of her palms on the Somnus’ heart. At that touch, her head bends back and her eyes glow with a white light, while her arms tremble, percurred by lilac streams of a magic so intense, archaic and primal that the whole cave quakes at the strong vibrations that derive from it. Meanwhile, the runes impressed on the ground crack it open to flow with all of their might in the direction of Youngjo’s body, the true epicenter of the ritual. As he is infused with such a power, the Somnus opens up his mouth and, much to Somin’s astonishment, a thick, dark, cloud arises from it, accompanied by raw guttural sounds and furious screams of thousands of different voices. 

There, the Goddess of Life sees him: the horrendous monster that had been growing and festering Youngjo is there, hiding in the smoke like the coward he is, yet helplessly and relentlessly withering, consumed and overpowered by the ritual.

All of a sudden, as it had appeared, the black cloud and the monster within it conflagrate in an intense blaze of dark fire, leaving only a perfectly round sphere of the one which looks like obsidian behind.

The ritual has come to an end, but it surely has taken a toll on Somin, who falls on the ground, senseless.

“Somin! Love!” Jiwoo screams, as she rushes to pick her up into her arms and gallantly lift her in her safe embrace.

Then, her gaze turns to Youngjo and Hongjoong and Jiwoo cannot hide a tender smile. 

They look perfect. 

A perfect couple of Somni.

“Let’s go, my adored. We have done all we had to. Now you need rest. Let me take care of you.” She whispers to Somin’s ear, brushing away a few locks of her silver hair from her forehead, while carefully carrying her out of the cave to a safe place where they can rest and recover, away from the pain, from the fear, from the horrors lingering in the shadows of the mortal world.

* * *

  
  
  
  


When Youngjo wakes up, he cannot tell what has happened.

All he remembers are muffled screams and a searing soreness radiating from his chest to his spine to his head and his limbs, numbing every other sensation and inhibiting him from having any reaction to it.

When he opens his eyes and stands up at once, he feels weird. 

He feels _himself_ once more, something he had not been familiar with for a very long time, ever since his mother and him had that fatal altercation.

With a glimpse of fear, afraid of it being one of his dreams, he quickly looks at his torso and notices a wide, thick scar protruding on his smooth skin.

It cannot be a dream.

It has to be real.

But how? He wonders.

His mind is clear, exceptionally so, though some of his memories seem to be gone or clouded, and his whole physique answers to his stimulations at once, with an vigor he had forgotten he ever had.

But the most intense joy is the one that gets to him when he notices how his wings instantly unfold at the single thought of flying, how solid they feel, how strongly they wave and flap, even if only aided by the subtle gusts of air in the cave.

He feels himself, he is himself, and all of that is real.

Nonetheless, the happiness is quick to fade from his face and his glee is instantly tainted by a sinister, primal shiver when Youngjo looks around and notices that Hongjoong, who, as he remembers very well, has been by his side during all along, is nowhere in sight.

Now that he is not under the effect of the temporary euphoria anymore, Youngjo does really take his time to inspect the cave surrounding him. 

At his feet, the ground, cracked in radial direction by deep clefts surrounded by a large crown of deeply carved runes, resembles the one of the ancient altars he had seen during the few quests he had to attend in the most remote regions of the land, where a long forgotten magical ancestry used to office their arcane rituals.

Not far from that, just a few steps away from the spot where he has awakened, Youngjo kneels down to inspect a series of dark spots of a thick fluid. In a cavity, the liquid seems to have gathered more abundantly. He dips his fingers inside of it and, as soon as he sees the way it tints his skin and slowly meanders along the curve of his wrist and down his forearm with red streaks, the Somnus understands that it is, indiscussibly, blood. 

A tight grasp clenches its hold around his heart, and for a moment Youngjo is overwhelmed with any kind of desperate thoughts, until a silvery voice calls for his attention.

When Youngjo raises his gaze, what he sees at the entrance of the cave is a sight that leaves him astonished and gasping for air, mind blown with wonder and awe.

“You know, you might want to put some clothes on, at a certain point.” 

In front of him, more magnificent that Youngjo could have ever believed he could have possibly became, stands Hongjoong, more splendid that ever.

Much to Youngjo’s stupor, his fuzzy, small wings are not there anymore: in their stance, sits an elegant pair of beautiful, dazzling white wings, with long, elegant, fluffy feathers, like the ones of a heron.

Everything about Hongjoong is glowing with a renewed radiance: his eyes glisten like they were stoned with stars, his long, silvery hair is kept in place by a couple of beautiful mother-of-pearl combs, and his smile exudes such a peacefulness and an intimate joy that he could light the whole world just by curling up the angles of his glossy lips. As for his figure, he is finely embraced by an exquisitely pleated garment, kept together by dozens of strands of pearls, entwined with one another and tied together around his neck, on top of his shoulder, around his hips, chiseling and sculpting his body in the fashion of a corset, whilst the lower part of the robe is left to loosely flow around his legs, allowing the sultry slopes of his supple thighs to make their appearance at every step he takes in his direction. Youngjo has to take a deep breath and to swallow the thick knot in his throat to keep his composure, repressing the instinct to run towards Hongjoong, sweep him off his feet in his embrace and cover up every millimeter of his skin with adoring kisses.

“You look..splendid…” Youngjo mutters, awkwardly trying to sort out his thoughts and translate them into words, but failing miserably. 

Nonetheless, the embarrassment is not due to last for a long time, because before he knows, Hongjoong throws himself into his arms and grabs Youngjo’s cheek to pull him in for a kiss that is filled with both desire and commotion, longing and appeasement, tenderness and lust.

Youngjo promptly welcomes him against his chest, his heart finally finding his natural pace as soon as he is reconciled with Hongjoong’s and his mind being immediately soothed by his familiar, faintly floral perfume.

They collide, gravitating towards each other, with the elegance of two feathers swirling in a warm summer’s evening breeze and the ineluctability of fate’s predeterminations, eventually brought back together, for good, by the same strings that united them on that very first night, when they discovered just how much they belonged in each other’s arms.

Youngjo has never had any real cognition of the notion of _heaven_ : he listened to his mother talk about the _World beyond the world_ many times but, from what she always told him and his siblings, Youngjo knows that heaven is different for every single person who walks its gates. Then again, if someone was to ask him now what his personal heaven would be like, he would, without a doubt, say that heaven is wherever Hongjoong is.

The feeling of having Hongjoong curled up into his arms, of his soft fingertips mindlessly drawing idly on his torso and playfully traveling along his neck, just for the sake of having him shiver at the touch, of his warm lips sprinkling his face with kisses: any single moment spent with him is the manifestation of the highest form of serendipity he could ever imagine, is the embodiment of bliss, is the epitome of love.

Without even bothering to pay any mind to the time, the two of them melt in a loving embrace, fidgeting with each other’s hair, interjecting their dialogues with kisses and giggles, tangling their fingers together and indulging in every kind of sweet nothings they can come up with, while Hongjoong patiently narrates to Youngjo the events of their last days spent together.

“Hongjoong, I need you to know that I will never be able to thank you enough for all that you’ve done for me. For protecting me from myself when I was at my weakest. For remaining by my side and leading me on the darkest of paths one could ever fathom walking onto. For your undying loyalty and for your incredible courage. For facing the unknown with an unshakable will and the stillest of hearts. I cannot even imagine what would have become of me if I hadn’t had you. There is no way I can possibly fully express my gratitude to you, but I mean to dedicate my whole life to the sole cause of your happiness.” Youngjo says, tenderly wrapping Hongjoong’s hand into his own and nuzzling his nose against his lover’s, looking at him in the eyes and closing the small distance between them to steal one more kiss from him.

“You’ll find yourself bored very soon, then, I’m afraid, since my happiness will forever be seeing the light rise in your eyes, dance the dance of our fingers entwining, listening to the song sung by our heart. I’m a simple creature, after all.” Hongjoong softly coos, shying away and hiding his flushed cheeks, unused to any kind of honor or recognition.

“Trust and believe, Hongjoong, you’re anything but simple. For that matter, you never were.” Youngjo retaliates, his voice veiled by a sheet of melancholy and guilt, well aware of how hellish he must have made his lover’s existence “I truly mean it, love. I don’t care about how much you object, I intend to make amend for all I’ve put you through.”

With lightweight steps and a sheer smile unfolding his small, plump lips, Hongjoong then wraps Youngjo in his old, beautiful, midnight blue robe, carefully tying, with a slight trembling of his hands, the refined cord around his waist to keep it in place.

“Then why don’t you take me to the sky? Just one last time. I won’t ask you to do that anymore, I promise I’ll learn to properly fly on my own.” Hongjoong says, playfully, as he pulls him by the hands to follow him outside of the cave, uncontainably excited.

“Oh, really? I don’t believe _this promise_ , not a bit!” Youngjo says, following Hongjoong outside and catching him by surprise, picking him up, bridal style, before taking off with a quick, powerful flap of wings.

The cool breeze of the night caresses their faces as Youngjo pushes himself to fly higher and higher, Hongjoong’s excited squirms and loud giggles filling up his ears like the best sound he has ever heard. Once they’re far enough from the ground and he can rely on the air currents to keep them afloat, Youngjo finally relaxes and closes his eyes to bask in the soft light of the moon, only ever so casually giving a lazy flap of wings to keep the both of them in mid-air.

“Do you remember? _I’ll never let go of your heart._ ” Hongjoong purrs, close to his ear, filling up his eyes with the breathtaking sights of the countless constellations above them and with the adorably endearing expression of complete fulfillment on Youngjo’s face.

Without even opening up his eyes, long lost in deep relaxation as he fidgets with his finger in Hongjoong’s hair and caresses his nape, Youngjo takes a deep breath and pulls him closer, perfectly reminding how those were the first promises they made to each other on the very first night when he took Hongjoong to fly with himself.

“Of course I remember. _I could die if you did_.” Youngjo answers, meaning it like never before.

Because he knows what could have been of him, if Hongjoong had decided to let go of his heart.

He is aware that, if he did, he would have certainly faced an unspeakably miserable existence.

If Hongjoong had let go of his heart, Youngjo would have probably been forever lost, as well, and neither his mind nor his soul would have been part of the world anymore.

Maybe, one day, they would have met again, in the World beyond the world.

Youngjo gently fondles Hongjoong’s soft cheeks in his hands, before sinking his lips on his ones in a kiss that feels like a vow.

He’s feels blessed, for he will never have to find out.

There are creatures in the woods.

There are creatures, of different species, with different natures, serving different tasks in the greater plan of the Eternal Law, and yet, when they cross each other's path, when they meet, magic happens.

There are creatures, and when they experience love, when they discover there is a higher purpose than survival, they sometimes chenge their world.

Forever.


End file.
